Historians of women in science have long pointed out the myth of “invisible” women in science and the ways in which marriage as institution has created “uneven” opportunities for scientifically-minded women. Women in fact can be found everywhere in the history of U.S. science, often found laboring in low-status, underpaying or unpaid positions in private and public settings. In conversation with this historical tradition, this paper examines the gendered scientific lives of two women who forged professional lives without the institution of marriage and in ways that provided for their financial security. A working-class Bostonian, Elizabeth Hodges Clark arrived at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) in 1873 as an untrained specimen sorter and ended her career as Alexander Agassiz’s private secretary, taking on much of the day-to-day responsibilities in running the museum in his absence. An elite Bostonian, Edith Nason Buckingham, the daughter of a well-regarded surgeon, became the first woman to receive her PhD in Zoology from Radcliffe College (which was associated with Harvard’s MCZ) and later used her technical expertise to run a successful poultry farm in Sudbury, MA. Gendered experiences of class, social status, and sexuality shaped Clark’s ascendance as a museum administrator and Buckingham’s ability to make a life for herself and her companion, Emily Fish, in Sudbury in important ways. This history offers lessons about the diversity of ways in which women creatively made independent lives in science in the 19th and 20th centuries.