Christine Ladd-Franklin did not become a leading scientist during a time when the doctrine of separate spheres was at its highest by chance. The ideology of the period was that white, middle-class women were defined by their family life and their activities were determined by their relatives' needs. Women had been classified as nurturers by the emotional role they played for in the family while the men took on the identity of the public realm and everything the family was not. Science was not excused from these ideas and its move from the "domestic, amateur context tro the public, professionalized arena worked to women's disadvantage."1
     The first women's liberation influences came from Ladd's mother. She, was herself an advocate of women's rights. When Ladd was just four years old, her mother brought her to a lecture by Elizabeth Oakes Smith, a leading advocate of political emancipation for women. Augusta, Christine's mother spoke highly of this lecture and allowed for her daughter to believe in the words of Smith:"women should be free to develop their talents to the fullest...." and according to Augusta, " women belonged not only in the pulpit. A place for which they were peculiarly suited, but also ‘every place where a man should be.'"
 After her mothers death, Christine stayed very close with one of her aunts and would report all her new discoveries in education and her visits to lectures back to her. Her aunt was one of Christine's biggest supporters and payed for some of her years at college.
     Besides her mother and her aunt Christine had several other important realatives. For instance one of her great-uncles, William Ladd, founded the American Peace Society, while another, John Milton Niles, was Post-Master General and twice United States Senator fro Connecticut. Six of her mother's ancestors were members of the Constitutional Convention of the Colony of Connecticut.