About: Ellen Swallow Richards House

The Ellen H. Swallow Richards House is a National Historic Landmark house at 32 Eliot Street in Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It was the home of Ellen Swallow Richards (1842–1911) from 1876 (shortly after her marriage to Robert Hallowell Richards) until her death. Richards was the first woman to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was its first female instructor. She introduced revolutionary ideas about home sanitation, and conducted pioneering work (some of it in this house) that led to the establishment of the field of home economics. The house itself was regularly altered as a consequence of her research, and was used by Richards as a consumer product testing laboratory. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1992.