Ardis T. Monk (1891-1984)

by Audrey Leonard

Despite her role in several of the University of Chicago's most significant undertakings, from the advent of social science research to the construction of the atom bomb, Ardis Thomas Monk’s academic contributions remain unacknowledged due to her standing as a female 'computer' without an advanced degree.

Astronomical Career

Thomas was born in 1891 in Akron, Ohio. Her mother, Minta, was a medical technician and ran a rooming house in Cleveland later in life.(1) Her father was a railroad switchman.(2) She earned her bachelor’s of science degree at the University of Chicago in 1913. An exceptional student, she received her B.S. with honors, alongside departmental honors in mathematics and physics and a membership to Phi Beta Kappa.(3) She completed most of her undergraduate program with the intent of becoming a math and physics teacher, but became interested in working as an astronomical calculator at the suggestion of physics professor Henry Gale. In the winter of 1912, she offered her services as a computer to Mount Wilson Observatory, seeking an immediate position rather than completing her degree, but was discouraged from doing so by the observatory’s director, who wrote that:

Thomas took his advice and completed her degree in March 1913, remaining in Chicago as a physics instructor at a girls’ school. (5)

Ardis Thomas married George S. Monk, a fellow University of Chicago student from London, England, on the 17th of December, 1913.(7) He received his degree the following year, at which point Ardis Thomas Monk successfully secured a position as a computer at Mount Wilson Solar Observatory in Pasadena, California, alongside her husband, who was employed as a research assistant.(8) There, both were involved in work with W.S. Adams calculating the radial velocities of stars from spectrograms. This project calculated velocities for some 500 stars in the years 1911-1915. (9)

In 1915, George Monk inquired after a position at Berkeley’s Lick Observatory, writing that he and Ardis Thomas Monk both planned to do graduate work in astronomy together following their work at Mt. Wilson. Were this to be impossible, however, she would seek employment as a computer or as a teacher in math or physics while George continued on with his graduate studies; “particularly,” he wrote, “we wish to remain together, whether she does graduate work or obtains a position as a computer or teacher.”(10) Either of these arrangements would be rather unusual – as a married woman and soon-to-be mother, social and cultural norms dictated that Thomas Monk ought to give up her scientific career and become a full-time homemaker. She evidently chafed against these expectations. This much was clear to George Monk, who wrote in 1916 that she “is infinitely happier at such work [computing and measuring] than dishwashing or cooking.”(11) Although the content of the work was quite different, both computing and housework fell into a similar category of invisible labor done chiefly by women.

Many women like Ardis Thomas Monk were engaged in performing high-level mathematical work behind the scenes of the 20th century’s major scientific discoveries. The rote, detailed nature of computing work led it to be deemed suitable for women in an environment where scientific labor was otherwise restricted for men. Pioneering astronomer Maria Mitchell wrote that computing work was akin to handicraft: “the eye that directs a needle in the delicate meshes of embroidery will equally well bisect a star with the spider web of the micrometer,” in labor that was “dull… [but] less dull than the endless repetition of the same pattern in crochet-work.”(12) Much like embroidery, crochet, and other household tasks, the skill required for computing work and its instrumentality in supporting better-recognized labor was hidden by its label as ‘women’s work.’ (13)

This is not to say that it was easy for women to find employment in astrophysics. There was a potential fellowship at Berkeley for George Monk, but they could not offer employment for Ardis Thomas Monk as well.(14) Monk ultimately declined this offer. Instead, the Monks and their newborn son moved back to the Chicago area in 1916 to work at Yerkes Observatory. The position at Yerkes was more appealing for several reasons: George Monk would be able to continue with the stellar spectroscopy work he had been doing at Mt. Wilson; the work could count towards graduate course credit at the University of Chicago; and finally, Ardis Thomas Monk would be able to continue her work as a computer rather than remaining at home, work that she was “willing and anxious to do.”(15) Thomas Monk’s work supplemented their income with an additional $15/month. This additional income went towards hiring a maid to complete housework in her stead, so that she was able to focus on computing and measuring work.(16) In George Monk’s correspondence with F.H. Seares, a Mt. Wilson astronomer, Seares writes that he is sure this arrangement “will be much easier and pleasanter,” suggesting Thomas Monk was noticeably happier at astronomical work.(17)

The Monk family’s time at Yerkes was challenging. Moving across the country with a newborn son proved to be a financial burden.(20) George Monk found the observing conditions at Yerkes to be underwhelming: he wrote that the scale definition of the 40” telescope at Yerkes, compared to the 60” he had been working with at Mt. Wilson, was “rather amusing… so poor that a Mt. Wilson observer would seriously consider going to bed.”(21) The harsh midwestern winters and cloudy springs also did not lend themselves to collecting observational data. Others at Yerkes shared this complaint: in March of 1923 observatory director Edwin B. Frost wrote that for observing purposes, the weather “has been bad during the winter, but better for the last month.”(22) Spring, however, did not necessarily bring a reprieve: in late March, Frost wrote that “the weather has been very fine here for human purposes, but the seeing has been rather poor.”(23) The seasonal observing conditions, smaller equipment, and strain of supporting their larger family on a small salary meant that the Monks only spent a short time at Yerkes Observatory.

When their nine-month appointment at Yerkes was finished in the summer of 1917, the couple returned to Chicago to look for further work. Ardis Thomas Monk found employment at both the University of Chicago and at Harvard School for Boys in Hyde Park, where she was a mathematics and physics instructor and tutored young men who were enlisting in the Army aviation service during World War I. (27) This step away from astrophysics felt in some ways like a step backwards. Shortly after their departure from Yerkes, George Monk wrote to E.E. Barnard that

Despite Monk’s discontent with the observational facilities at Yerkes, both he and Ardis Thomas Monk looked back on this time fondly. Two years later, George Monk wrote to Barnard that

Ardis Thomas Monk would not return to work in astronomy for nearly 20 years, and then only briefly, when she co-authored a paper on cosmic ray intensity with A.H. Compton, 3 years before they would work together again on the Manhattan Project. (30)

For the next several years, she continued to work teaching math and physics. From 1918 to 1920 she taught at the Oregon Agricultural College in Corvallis (now Oregon State University).(32) The Monks were again able to arrange for a housekeeper to take care of their son and household while Ardis and George worked at the College: “we have had good fortune in getting the services of an old lady who has raised nine children of her own to take care of [George Monk, Jr.] while Mrs. Monk is teaching.”(33) At the end of 1920, they returned to Chicago, where Thomas Monk’s teaching career continued, first at the Faulkner School for Girls and then at St. Xavier’s College. (34) Sometime between 1924 and 1926, she returned to the University of Chicago, where she became involved in research at the University’s Department of Economics.

The Local Community Research Committee

The University of Chicago was an early center– arguably the birthplace– of modern social science research. The Chicago School of sociology dominated the social science world at the start of the 20th century, owing to a variety of factors– its newness and organizational flexibility compared to other highly-funded universities, funding from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund set aside specifically for social welfare projects,(35) and its position as the publisher of the largest and most prestigious sociology journal,(36) for instance– and its approaches therefore had a major influence on the development of American social science in the decades to come. The Chicago School emphasized interdisciplinary cooperation between the biological and physical sciences and fields like economics, psychology, and sociology. This interdisciplinary cooperation helped form a new, highly quantitative approach to the study of human behavior.(37) It was this quantitative approach, in the tradition of Comte’s positivism and emphasizing the ‘scientific’ side of the field, that would come to define modern social science.(38) Ardis Thomas Monk was part of this social scientific revolution, providing her quantitative expertise to economics research in the early ‘20s.

Alongside Dr. Helen Jeter, an economist and assistant professor of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago, Thomas Monk co-authored “The Logistic Curve and the Prediction of the Population of the Chicago Region” (1928). Together, they sought to take the influential logistic curve population predictions by Raymond Pearl and apply them to Chicagoland for planning purposes. Pearl’s work was influential, but apparently difficult to replicate. In their joint research proposal, Thomas Monk suggested that the necessary calculations to replicate his process were undescribed in his work but would be “exceedingly laborious and expensive,” which explained why the logistic curve formula had “never… been tested out in practice by anyone but Mr. Pearl.”(39) In their project of rendering the formula more widely applicable, Thomas Monk would contribute the necessary, complex mathematical work, while Jeter would “make it intelligible to the non-mathematical statistician.”(40) This partnership is emblematic of the interdisciplinary, increasingly quantitative social scientific work at the University that propelled it to eminence during this period.(41)

Metallurgical Laboratory

Following her foray into social science work, Thomas Monk returned to the University of Chicago’s Physics department, where she continued working as a computer on various physics projects and teaching general courses in physics, math, and astronomy. (42) George Monk was at this point a faculty member of the physics department, specializing in optics, since receiving his PhD from the University in 1923.(43) As mentioned above, Thomas Monk worked with A.H. Compton on his research on the geographical distribution of cosmic ray intensity, contributing to the discovery that these rays are primarily made up of protons and are therefore affected by magnetic activity. This research was published in July 1939, after which Thomas Monk continued her general teaching and computer work at the University.

In April 1941, Compton was selected to chair a committee to determine whether research into uranium-based weaponry was important for national defense, to which the committee responded with unanimous support.(45) By the time that the U.S. officially joined World War II in December, Compton was in charge of assembling the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago to conduct research on the nuclear chain reaction.(46) Ardis Thomas Monk was appointed as a research associate in the Metallurgical Laboratory in early 1942 (47) and co-authored several technical and working papers with the noted nuclear physicists there– for instance, with Eugene Wigner and Alvin Weinberg in 1942,(48) and Samuel King Allison in 1944.(49) Despite the huge number of people recruited to support the work of the Metallurgical Laboratory– over 2,000 in various roles (50)– Thomas Monk was the one permanent computer on the physics department’s staff throughout the lab’s tenure in the 1940s. (51)

The first work in nuclear physics on which Thomas Monk is credited is a 1942 technical report on the “Density of Neutrons in Carbon Block with and Without Absorbing Material,” conducted with Wigner, Weinberg, Friedman, and Plass on the basis of experimental work done at Princeton. Thomas Monk calculated the probability of survival over time of a neutron chain, accounting for the density of neutrons in a given mass.(53) She is then credited on a technical report about the “Stability of Split Hollow Cylinders” (54) with W. Karush in 1944, elaborated into a paper published in 1953 on the “Thermal Contraction of a Split Hollow Cylinder.” These papers examine the geometrical changes to a split hollow cylinder under different conditions; the criticality of a cylindrical reactor is determined by its geometry, so understanding, for instance, the effects of temperature on its dimensions has important implications for the construction of a reactor. Later in 1944 she worked on “Further End Cap Temperature Calculations,” again with Karush, examining variable temperature effects across a nuclear fuel slug.(55) In late 1944 she produced a technical paper with S.K. Allison, reporting “Computed Values of X-Ray Lines and Limits For the Trans-Uranic Elements,” calculating the distinctive X-Ray spectra for elements such as plutonium with atomic numbers greater than that of uranium.(56) The last Manhattan Project technical paper on which she is credited as an author is on the “Theory of [an] Oscillating Absorber in a Chain Reacting Pile,” with A.S. Cahn and Weinberg.(57) Here, she contributed calculations using a new means of calculating pile reactivity which takes into account the natural fluctuations in reactivity, with implications for safely maintaining a large-scale chain reaction.

George Monk was a signatory to the Szilard Petition, a petition from those involved in the Metallurgical Laboratory (from physicists to physicians to research assistants and computers) that Japan be given adequate notice and terms of surrender before deployment of the atomic bomb. The petition of July 1945 did not reach President Truman by the August 6th and 9th bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.(58) After the bombings and the 1947 dissolution of the Manhattan Project, the Monks remained involved with atomic physics, working for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission at Argonne National Laboratory.(59) Ardis Thomas Monk did not author any more publications after 1945.

She and George Monk both enjoyed mountaineering;(60) they had retired in Boulder, Colorado by 1960.(61) Their son, George D. Monk, was also involved in the Manhattan Project, helping establish the nuclear reactors at the Hanford Site and working at Los Alamos Laboratory.(62) George D. Monk died in November 1983; Ardis Thomas Monk died the following year at the age of 93. (63) A talented mathematician, Thomas Monk contributed to a wide variety of work in astronomy, physics, and statistics across her 30-year academic career­.

(1)1920 United States Federal Census, via FamilySearch.org; 1930 United States Federal Census, via Ancestry.com; and 1940 United States Federal Census, via Ancestry.com.

(2) 1900 United States Census, via FamilySearch.org.

(3) University of Chicago Convocation Program, March 18, 1913.

(4) Ardis Thomas to Frederick Seares, 29 Jan 1912. Mount Wilson Observatory, Frederick Hanley Seares Papers. Box 4, Folder 79, Huntington Library Manuscript Collections.

(5) Biography of Mrs. Ardis Thomas Monk, August 17, 1942. University of Chicago, Archival Biographical File. Box 44, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library; and Ardis Thomas Monk, December 5, 1918. Oregon State University, Employment Records (RG 290). Box 26, Oregon State University Special Collections and Archives.

(6) Ardis Thomas to Frederick Seares, 29 Jan 1912. Mount Wilson Observatory, Frederick Hanley Seares Papers. Box 4, Folder 79, Huntington Library Manuscript Collections.

(7) Marriage Certificate, Ardis Ethelyn Thomas, December 17, 1913. Indiana, U.S., Marriages, 1810-2001, via Ancestry.com.

(8) Biography of Mrs. Ardis Thomas Monk; and Biography of George S. Monk, January 17, 1943. University of Chicago, Archival Biographical File. Box 50, Hannah Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

(9) Walter S. Adams, “The Radial Velocities of Five Hundred Stars,” The Astrophysical Journal 42 (September 1, 1915): 172–94; and Adams, “Stellar Radial-Velocity Programs of the Mount Wilson Observatory,” Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 63, no. 373 (1951): 183–90.

(10) George Monk to William Campbell, 4 Oct 1915. Lick Observatory Archives. Box 102:12, Folder UA 36, University of California, Santa Cruz Special Collections & Archives.

(11) George Monk to Frederick Seares, 11 Oct 1916. Mount Wilson Observatory, Frederick Hanley Seares Papers. Box 12, Folder 248, Huntington Library Manuscript Collections.

(12) Maria Mitchell, Life, Letters, and Journals, edited by Phebe Mitchell Kendall, (Boston, MA: Lee and Shepard Publishers, 1896), quoted in John Lankford and Ricky L. Slavings, American Astronomy: Community, Careers, and Power, 1859-1940 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 290.

(13) Margaret W Rossiter, “‘Women’s Work’ in Science, 1880-1910,” Isis 71, no. 3 (1980): 381–98., and David Alan Grier, When Computers Were Human, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007), 82-84.

(14) William Campbell to George Monk, 11 Oct 1915. Lick Observatory Archives. Box 102:12, Folder UA 36, University of California, Santa Cruz Special Collections & Archives.

(15) George Monk to Edwin Frost, 7 Jun 1916. University of Chicago Yerkes Observatory, Office of the Director Records. Box 67, Folder 2. Hannah Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

(16) George Monk to Frederick Seares, 11 Oct 1916. Mount Wilson Observatory, Frederick Hanley Seares Papers. Box 12, Folder 248, Huntington Library Manuscript Collections.

(17) Frederick Seares to George Monk, 16 Oct 1916. Mount Wilson Observatory, Frederick Hanley Seares Papers. Box 12, Folder 248, Huntington Library Manuscript Collections.

(18) “Bruce Observatory with Edward Emerson Barnard and George W. Ritchey Houses in Autumn. Photograph Taken from the Steps of Yerkes Observatory, Looking Southwest,” 1914, University of Chicago Photographic Archive. On their occupation of the Ritchey/Hill house: Edwin Frost to George Monk, 13 June 1916. University of Chicago Yerkes Observatory, Office of the Director Records. Box 67, Folder 2. Hannah Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.; and Edward Barnard to George Monk, 11 Sept 1916. E.E. Barnard Papers, Box 37. Vanderbilt University.

(19) “Looking Southwest from the Steps of Yerkes Observatory Showing George W. Ritchey’s House,” Autumn 1914, University of Chicago Photographic Archive

(20) George Monk to Edward Barnard, 4 August 1917. E.E. Barnard Papers. Box 23, Vanderbilt University.

(21) George Monk to Frederick Seares, 11 October 1916. Mount Wilson Observatory, Frederick Hanley Seares Papers. Box 12, Folder 248, Huntington Library Manuscript Collections.

(22) Edwin Frost to Anne Sewell Young, 8 March 1923. University of Chicago Yerkes Observatory, Office of the Director Records. Box 96, Folder 6. Hannah Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

(23) Edwin Frost to Alice Hall Farnsworth, 31 March 1925. University of Chicago Yerkes Observatory, Office of the Director Records. Box 103, Folder 5. Hannah Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

(24) “Yerkes Observatory's 90-foot dome and frost-laden trees from astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard's lawn,” n.d., University of Chicago Photographic Archive.

(25) “Yerkes Observatory from George W. Ritchey's house, spring of 1922,” 1922, University of Chicago Photographic Archive. The archival image is mirrored and has been flipped for comparison purposes.

(26) Photo courtesy of Richard Kron.

(27) George Monk to Edward Barnard, 4 January 1918. E.E. Barnard Papers. Box 23, Vanderbilt University.; and Ardis Thomas Monk, Oregon State University Employment Records.

(28) George Monk to Edward Barnard, 4 January 1918. E.E. Barnard Papers. Box 23, Vanderbilt University.

(29) George Monk to Edward Barnard, 2 March 1919. E.E. Barnard Papers. Box 23, Vanderbilt University.

(30) A. T. Monk and A. H. Compton, “Recurrence Phenomena in Cosmic-Ray Intensity,” Reviews of Modern Physics 11, no. 3–4 (July 1, 1939): 173–79.; and Biography of Mrs. Ardis Thomas Monk, University of Chicago Archival Biographical File.

(31) Ardis Thomas Monk to Frederick Seares, 2 Jun 1917. Mount Wilson Observatory, Frederick Hanley Seares Papers. Box 12, Folder 248, Huntington Library Manuscript Collections.

(32) General Catalog, 1919-1920. Oregon State University General Catalogs, Oregon State University. via Oregon Digital.

(33) George Monk to Edward Barnard, 2 Mar 1919. E.E. Barnard Papers. Box 23, Vanderbilt University Library.

(34) Biography of Mrs. Ardis Thomas Monk. University of Chicago Archival Biographical Files.

(35) Martin Bulmer, “The Early Institutional Establishment of Social Science Research: The Local Community Research Committee at the University of Chicago, 1923-30,” Minerva 18, no. 1 (1980): 55-56, 70.

(36) Jonathan H. Turner, “The Mixed Legacy of the Chicago School of Sociology,” Sociological Perspectives 31, no. 3 (1988): 331.

(37) Bulmer, “The Early Institutional Establishment of Social Science Research.”

(38) Turner, “The Mixed Legacy of the Chicago School,” 328.

(39) Helen Jeter to Leon Marshall, October 18, 1926. University of Chicago Department of Economics Papers, Box 18, Folder 9, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

(40) Jeter to Marshall, October 18, 1926.

(41) Bulmer, “The Early Institutional Establishment of Social Science Research,” 53–54, 97–98.

(42) Biography of Mrs. Ardis Thomas Monk. University of Chicago Archival Biographical File.

(43) Biography of George S. Monk. University of Chicago Archival Biographical File.

(44) A.T. Monk and A.H. Compton, “Recurrence phenomena in cosmic-ray intensity,” Reviews of Modern Physics 11, no. 3-4 (July 1, 1939): 173–79.

(45) Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr., The New World, 1939/1946, (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1962), 35-38.

(46) The Manhattan Project: An Interactive History, “Arthur H. Compton.” U.S. Department of Energy, Office of History and Heritage Resources.

(47) Biography of Mrs. Ardis Thomas Monk. University of Chicago Archival Biographical File.

(48) E. P. Wigner et al., “Density of Neutrons in Carbon Block with and Without Absorbing Material,” in Nuclear Energy, ed. Alvin M. Weinberg (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 1992), 219–38.

(49) A. T. Monk and S. K. Allison, “Computed Values of X-Ray Lines and Limits For the Trans-Uranic Elements,” (University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory, September 1, 1944).

(50) SCIENCE AND CONSCIENCE: Chicago’s Met Lab and the Manhattan Project, “Managing the Met Lab,” University of Chicago Library.

(51) List of Names, May 1, 1942. University of Chicago Department of Physics Records. Box 10, Folder 10.; and Frank C. Hoyt, “Report: Summary of Employees,” December 30, 1943. University of Chicago Department of Physics Records. Box 10, Folder 10.; and Directory of Personnel: Ryerson and Eckhart, 1940. Department of Physics Records Box 10, Folder 26. Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

(52) “Physics Department,” June 20, 1940, University of Chicago Photographic Archive.

(53) Wigner, E. P., F. L. Friedman, A. T. Monk, G. N. Plass, and A. M. Weinberg, “Density of Neutrons in Carbon Block with and Without Absorbing Material,” In The Collected Works of Eugene Paul Wigner: Part A: The Scientific Papers, edited by Arthur Wightman, (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 1993), 219–38.

(54) W. Karush and A. T. Monk, “Stability of Split Hollow Cylinders,” (University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory, June 29, 1944); W. Karush and A. V. Martin, “Thermal Contraction of a Split Hollow Cylinder,” Journal of Applied Physics 24, no. 12 (December 1, 1953): 1427–31.

(55) W. Karush, A. T. Monk, and J. Ernest Wilkins, “Further End Cap Temperature Calculations,” (University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory, August 16, 1944), via UNT Digital Library.

(56) Monk and Allison, “Computed Values of X-Ray Lines and Limits For the Trans-Uranic Elements.”

(57) A.S. Cahn, A. T. Monk, and A.M. Weinberg, “Theory of Oscillating Absorber in a Chain Reacting Pile,” (University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory, April 6, 1945), via UNT Digital Library.

(58) Szilard Petition, July 17, 1945.

(59) G.S. Monk and W.H. McCorkle, Optical Instrumentation, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1954); and “Necrology: George S. Monk,” Journal of the Optical Society of America 63, no. 7 (July 1, 1973): 906.

(60) Biography of Mrs. Ardis Thomas Monk, and Biography of George S. Monk. University of Chicago Archival Biographical Files.

(61) Boulder, Colorado City Directory, 1960. via Ancestry.com.

(62) "Obituary - George D. Monk,” The Idaho Statesman (December 3, 1983): 12. via Newspapers.com.

(63) Ardis T. Monk (1891-1984), via FindAGrave.com