A challenge in representing the history of science at the University of Toronto is that few artifacts have been collected from women scientists. Still, women researchers have been present at the Department of Physics for longer, and in greater numbers, than one might guess. Historian Alison Prentice notes that women earned nearly 20% of the PhDs awarded by the U of T in physics between 1900 and 1930.
Women were first permitted to attend the University of Toronto in 1877, a year before the founding of the physics laboratory. In its early years, several women studied physics and found temporary employment at the U of T. For instance, Elizabeth Laird earned a BA in 1896 and later worked as a secretary and physics lecturer. The first woman (also the first Jewish person) to earn a PhD was Mattie Levi Rotenberg (1897-1989) in 1924.
No women were awarded PhDs in physics over a lengthy interval between 1933 and 1961. Currently, around 20%-25% of graduate students at the Department of Physics identify as women.