Louise Hammarström

Louise Hammarström (1849 to 1917) was a Swedish chemist and the first formally educated female Swedish chemist. The daughter of a vicar, she was orphaned at an early age and grew up at an ironworks in Dalarna in central Sweden, where she became interested in chemical substances. She studied at Konstfack and studied chemistry by private lessons, and in 1875 was employed at the laboratory of the engineer Werner Cronquist in Stockholm, where she was an assistant from 1876 to 1881. She then worked as a mineral chemist at the ironworks of Bångbro from 1881 to 1887, Fagersta from 1887 to 1891 and Schisshyttan from 1891 to 1893. In 1893 she opened her own laboratory in Kopparberg, where she focused primarily on minerals and geological studies.