Mary Engle Pennington (October 8, 1872 – December 27, 1952) was an American bacteriological chemist and refrigeration engineer.

Early life and education

Mary Engle Pennington was born in

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and ...

; her parents were Henry and Sarah Malony Pennington. Shortly after her birth, her parents moved to

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

to be closer to her mother's

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...

relatives. Her younger sister, Helen, was born in 1878. Mary Pennington demonstrated an early interest in chemistry. She entered the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...

in 1890 and completed the requirements for a B.S. degree in chemistry with minors in botany and

zoology Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, an ...

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. Pennington received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1895. Her thesis was entitled "Derivatives of Columbium and Tantalum." From 1895–96 she was a university fellow in botany at her Alma Mater. She was a fellow in physiological chemistry at

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

in 1897–99, where she did research in physiological chemistry with Dr Lafayette Mendel and Dr Russell Chittenden. In 1898 she founded the Philadelphia Clinical Laboratory. In the same year, she accepted a position with the

Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as " women's rights" to denote female humans regar ...

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.

Later life

Pennington died on December 27, 1952, in New York. She is buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Association with the U.S. Department of Agriculture

In 1905, Pennington began working for the

U.S. Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of comme ...

as a bacteriological chemist. 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 the

Pure Food and Drug Act The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, also known as Dr. Wiley's Law, was the first of a series of significant consumer protection laws which was enacted by Congress in the 20th century and led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administratio ...

of 1906. She accepted the position in 1907. 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 on

Herbert Hoover Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gre ...

's War Food Administration during World War I.

Refrigeration engineer and consultant

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. 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 in

icebox An icebox (also called a cold closet) is a compact non-mechanical refrigerator which was a common early-twentieth-century kitchen appliance before the development of safely powered refrigeration devices. Before the development of electric refrige ...

es, before the widespread availability of electric refrigerators. With NAII support, she published pamphlets on home food safety, including ''The Care of the Child's Food in the Home'' (1925) and ''Cold is the Absence of Heat'' (1927).

Publications and memberships

She contributed to many scientific and medical journals and was a member of the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

and the Society of Biological Chemists. She was a fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

, and a member of the Philadelphia Pathological Society,

Sigma XI Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society () is a highly prestigious, non-profit honor society for scientists and engineers. Sigma Xi was founded at Cornell University by a junior faculty member and a small group of graduate students in 1886 ...

, and the

Kappa Kappa Gamma Kappa Kappa Gamma (), also known simply as Kappa or KKG, is a collegiate sorority founded at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois, United States. It has a membership of more than 260,000 women, with 140 collegiate chapters in the United States ...

sorority.

Awards

Mary Engle Pennington was the recipient of the Garvan-Olin Medal, the highest award given to women in the

. She is also an inductee of both the

National Women's Hall of Fame The National Women's Hall of Fame (NWHF) is an American institution incorporated in 1969 by a group of men and women in Seneca Falls, New York, although it did not induct its first enshrinees until 1973. As of 2021, it had 303 inductees. Induc ...

and the

ASHRAE The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE ) is an American professional association seeking to advance heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC&R) systems design and constructi ...

Hall of Fame. She was the first woman elected to the Poultry Historical Society Hall of Fame in 1959. In 2018, she was inducted into the

National Inventors Hall of Fame The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) is an American not-for-profit organization, founded in 1973, which recognizes individual engineers and inventors who hold a U.S. patent of significant technology. Besides the Hall of Fame, it also oper ...

.National Inventors Hall of Fame, Mary Engle Pennington
/ref>

References

*Leonard, John William (1914).
Woman's who's who of America: a biographical dictionary of contemporary women of the United States and Canada, 1914-1915
', The American Commonwealth Company.

External links

Profile
at National Women's Hall of Fame * *
Alt URL
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pennington, Mary Engle 1872 births 1952 deaths Lawyers from Nashville, Tennessee Scientists from Philadelphia American women engineers American chemical engineers American women chemists Food and Drug Administration people Chemists from Pennsylvania