Mary Engle Pennington | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Pennington in 1940 | |
| Born | (1872-10-08)October 8, 1872 Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Died | December 27, 1952(1952-12-27) (aged 80) New York, U.S. |
| Resting place | Laurel Hill Cemetery,Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Alma mater | University of Pennsylvania Yale University |
| Awards | Garvan–Olin Medal(1940) National Women's Hall of Fame ASHRAE Hall of Fame National Inventors Hall of Fame |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Bacteriological chemist Refrigeration engineer |
| Institutions | Yale University |
Mary Engle Pennington (October 8, 1872 – December 27, 1952) was an Americanbacteriological chemist, food scientist andrefrigeration engineer. She was an innovator in the preservation, handling, storage, and transportation of perishable foods and the first female lab chief at the U.S.Food and Drug Administration. She was awarded 5 patents (3 of which were shared), received the Notable Service Medal from PresidentHerbert Hoover, and received theGarvin-Olin Medal from theAmerican Chemical Society. She is an inductee of theNational Inventor's Hall of Fame, theNational Women's Hall of Fame and theASHRAE Hall of Fame.
Pennington was born on October 8, 1872, inNashville, Tennessee, to Henry and Sarah Malony Pennington. Shortly after her birth, her parents moved toPhiladelphia to be closer to her mother'sQuaker relatives.[1][2] She became interested in chemistry at the age of 12 after reading a library book on medicinal chemistry. She walked to theUniversity of Pennsylvania and asked a professor for help with the terminology she did not understand. She was told to come back when she was older.[3]
She entered theUniversity of Pennsylvania in 1890 and completed the requirements for a B.S. degree in chemistry with minors inbotany andzoology in 1892. However, since the University of Pennsylvania did not grant degrees to women at this time, she was given a certificate of proficiency instead of a degree.[2]
Pennington received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1895. Her thesis was entitled "Derivatives of Columbium and Tantalum."[1] From 1895 to 1896, she was a university fellow in botany at the University of Pennsylvania. She was a fellow inphysiological chemistry atYale University from 1897 to 1899, and conducted research withLafayette Mendel andRussell Henry Chittenden.[1][2]
In 1898, she founded the Philadelphia Clinical Laboratory[4] and conducted bacteriological analyses. She educated farmers on the handling of raw milk in order to improve the safety of ice cream sold at local schools.[5] In the same year, she accepted a position with theWomen's Medical College of Pennsylvania as director of their clinical laboratory. She also served as a research worker in the department of hygiene at the University of Pennsylvania from 1898 to 1901, and was a bacteriologist with the Philadelphia Bureau of Health. In her position with the Bureau of Health, she was instrumental in improving sanitation standards for the handling of milk and milk products.[6][7]
In 1905, Pennington worked for theU.S. Department of Agriculture Bureau of Chemistry, which later became the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.[8] Her director at the Bureau of Chemistry,Harvey W. Wiley, encouraged her to apply for a position as chief of the newly created Food Research Laboratory, which had been established to enforce thePure Food and Drug Act of 1906. She was submitted to the position under the name M.E. Pennington in order to hide her gender.[9] She accepted the position in 1907 and became the first female lab chief.[5] One of her major accomplishments was the development of standards for the safe processing of chickens raised for human consumption. She also served as head of an investigation of refrigerated boxcar design and served onHerbert Hoover's War Food Administration during World War I.[6]
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Pennington's involvement with refrigerated boxcar design at the Food Research Laboratory led to an interest in the entire process of transporting and storing perishable food, including both refrigerated transport and home refrigeration. During her time with the laboratory, Pennington and Howard Castner Pierce were awarded a U.S. patent for an all-metal poultry-cooling rack for the cooling and grading of poultry, rabbits, and game.[10]
In 1919, Pennington accepted a position with a private firm, American Balsa, which manufactured insulation for refrigeration units. She left the firm in 1922 to start her own consulting business, which she ran until her retirement in 1952. She founded the Household Refrigeration Bureau in 1923 to educate consumers in safe practices in domestic refrigeration. Much of her work in the 1920s was supported by the National Association of Ice Industries (NAII), an association of independent icemakers and distributors who delivered ice to the home for use iniceboxes, before the widespread availability of electric refrigerators. With NAII support, she published pamphlets on home food safety, includingThe Care of the Child's Food in the Home (1925) andCold is the Absence of Heat (1927).[6]
In 1913 Pennington and Howard Castner Pierce were issued a U.S. patent for an all-metal poultry-cooling rack for the cooling and grading of poultry, rabbits, and game.[10][9]
In 1927 she and Alex Brooking Davis were issued a U.S. patent for the manufacture of strawboard.[11]
In 1932 she was issued a U.S. patent for a scale for determining the color of egg meat.[12]
In 1935 she andArthur W. Thomas were issued a U.S. patent for a method of treating eggs.[13]
Later in 1935, she was issued a U.S. patent for a method for freezing eggs.[12]
She was a member of theAmerican Chemical Society and the Society of Biological Chemists. She became a Fellow of theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science in 1947, and was also a Fellow of the American Society of Refrigerating Engineers.[14][15]
She was also a member of the Philadelphia Pathological Society,Sigma Xi, and theKappa Kappa Gamma sorority.[16]
In 1919, she was awarded the Notable Service Medal by PresidentHerbert Hoover for her work in refrigeration. In 1940, she became the second recipient of theGarvan–Olin Medal, then called the Francis P. Garvan Medal, from theAmerican Chemical Society.[17][18]
Pennington died on December 27, 1952,[8] in New York, and was interred atLaurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[19]
In 1959 she became the first woman elected to the Poultry Historical Society Hall of Fame.[4] She was inducted into theNational Women's Hall of Fame in 2002, theAmerican Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers Hall of Fame in 2007,[7] and theNational Inventors Hall of Fame in 2018.[8]
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