Freda Friedman was born on May 12, 1927, in Brooklyn, New York, the youngest of five children of Ann and Jacob Friedman. She was graduated from Brooklyn College in 1949, and earned her Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois in 1953 with a thesis on "Photo-Meson Production from a Single Nucleon." She subsequently held research positions at the Universities of Wisconsin, Rochester, and Colorado.
She married George Salzman (GS), also a physicist, in 1948; they had two daughters, Amy (born October 19, 1954) and Erica (born July 7, 1958). The Salzmans collaborated on some of their research and in 1965 were both appointed to the physics department of the newly-established Boston campus of the University of Massachusetts (UMass). In 1967 they learned that FFS's appointment would soon be terminated; the University informed them of this officially on August 31, 1968. After a five-year confrontation with the University, allegedly centering on the issue of nepotism, FFS was reinstated in May 1972. In 1975, after a briefer struggle, she was given tenure. During these years, the Salzmans became increasingly concerned with the political and social aspects of science; both were active in the Boston chapter of Science for the People (SftP) and FFS particularly with its Sociobiology Study Group (SSG) and Women's Issues Project Group (WIG). FFS was also active in organizations of women scientists. She died of cancer on April 1, 1981.
From the guide to the Papers, 1927-1981, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)
