Martha Goodway

Martha Goodway is an American metallurgist, specializing in archaeometallurgy, the study of traditional techniques of mining, smelting, and working metals; and an expert in the use of metals in historical harpsichords.

Early life and education

Martha Goodway was raised in Roslindale, Massachusetts. She came from a family of engineers.[1] She graduated from Roslindale High School in 1952,[2] and earned a bachelor's degree in general engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1957.[3] She was one of only nineteen women to earn degrees at MIT that year.[4]

Career

After college she became interested in conservation science, and studied with William Young at the Objects Conservation and Scientific Research Laboratory in Boston. Through Young's connections, she became a metallurgist at the Conservation Analytical Laboratory of the Smithsonian Institution. She became the first metallurgist to work full time in a U.S museum.[1] She worked there for 41 years.[1] In that job, she worked on such diverse historical artifacts as waterproof Greek vessels,[5] Etruscan mirrors,[6] 18th-century wire jewelry from Germany,[7] and the crankcase of the Wright Brothers' first flyer.[8] She was also consulted for comments on the restoration of the Statue of Liberty.[9]

She developed an interest in the use of metals in historical musical instruments, particularly the harpsichord,[10][11] and co-authored a book on the subject in 1987.[12]

Goodway currently holds the title Archaeometallurgist Emeritus at the Smithsonian's Museum Conservation Institute.[13]

References

  1. ^ a b c "Martha Goodway '57". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 2021-02-10.
  2. ^ Roslindale High School Yearbook, 1952.
  3. ^ CEE in Focus: Alumni News Archived 2015-12-24 at the Wayback Machine (Spring 2011), Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  4. ^ Lynne Robinson, "Martha Goodway: How History is Made" Journal of Metallurgy 67(9)(2015): 1918–1920. doi:10.1007/s11837-015-1572-8
  5. ^ Ivan Amato, "Researchers Swap Material Evidence in Boston" Science 258(5090)(18 December 1992): 1886.
  6. ^ Martha Goodway, "Etruscan Mirrors: A Reinterpretation" in Stuart J. Fleming and Helen R. Schenck, eds., History of Technology: The Role of Metals (UPenn Museum of Archaeology 1989): 25. ISBN 978-0-924171-95-6
  7. ^ Paul Lee, Vignettes: Musings and Reminiscences of a Modern Renaissance Man (iUniverse 2012): 424-425. ISBN 978-1-4759-5655-9
  8. ^ Frank W. Gayle and Martha Goodway, "Precipitation Hardening in the First Aerospace Aluminum Alloy: The Wright Flyer Crankcase" Science 266(5187)(11 November 1994): 1015–1017. DOI: 10.1126/science.266.5187.1015
  9. ^ Jonathan Waldman, Rust: The Longest War (Simon & Schuster 2015): 27. ISBN 978-1-4516-9161-0
  10. ^ Thomas Donahue, The Harpsichord Stringing Handbook (Rowman & Littlefield 2015): 1. ISBN 978-1-4422-4345-3
  11. ^ Martha Goodway, "Iron" in Igor Kipnis, ed., The Harpsichord and Clavichord: An Encyclopedia (Routledge 2013): 267. ISBN 978-1-135-94978-5
  12. ^ Martha Goodway and Jay Scott Odell, The Metallurgy of 17th- and 18th-Century Music Wire (Pendragon Press 1987). ISBN 978-0-918728-54-8
  13. ^ Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute, "Past Staff | Museum Conservation Institute".