Jolane Baumgarten Solomon was born in New York City on September 23, 1927. Her parents separated when she was quite young and she spent a few years at the Pleasantville Cottage School, a school for orphans north of New York City. When she was thirteen she returned to New York to live with her mother, a bookkeeper. Her mother's mental illness made it impossible for her to continue working and she and Jolane went on welfare. Solomon took evening classes at New York University and Hunter College while working in the calculation division of the Manhattan Project and as a laboratory technician at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. Upon receiving her bachelor's degree in zoology from Hunter College in 1952, Solomon moved to Cambridge, to attend Radcliffe Graduate School. While working towards her master's degree in biology, she boarded with John Kenneth Galbraith and his wife Catherine, who became lifelong friends.
In 1957, she was married to Bernard Solomon, then an advisor to Congressman Foster Furcolo. She received her doctorate in biology and physiology in 1958 and worked as a post-doctorate fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health. In 1962, she and her husband adopted a baby boy. In 1963 Solomon joined the biology department at Boston College, where she taught a popular endocrinology course and was dedicated to promoting and furthering the role of women in science and research. To this end, she chaired a committee to study the role of women at the college. She was promoted to full professor in 1980, thus becoming the first female full professor in the natural sciences. Besides their son Samuel, the Solomons had a daughter, Sarah, known as Sally, born in 1964. Solomon died March 9, 2001.
From the description of Papers, ca.1900-2001 (inclusive). (Harvard University). WorldCat record id: 232009076
