Mary Engle Pennington

18 languages

Tools

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pennington in 1940

Born

October 8, 1872

, U.S.

Died

December 27, 1952

(aged 80)

, U.S.

Resting

place

U.S.

Alma mater

Awards

(1940)

Hall of Fame

Scientific career

Fields

Bacteriological chemist

Refrigeration engineer

Institutions

Mary Engle Pennington

(October 8, 1872 – December 27, 1952) was an American

chemist, food scientist and

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.

. She was awarded 5 patents (3 of which were shared), received

the Notable Service Medal from President

, and received the

from the

. She is an inductee of

the

, the

and

the

Hall of Fame.

Early life and education

[

]

Pennington as a young girl.

Pennington was born on October 8, 1872, in

, to Henry and

Sarah Malony Pennington. Shortly after her birth, her parents moved to

to be closer to her mother's

relatives.

She became

interested in chemistry at the age of 12 after reading a library book on

medicinal chemistry. She walked to the

and asked a

professor for help with the terminology she did not understand. She was told

to come back when she was older.

She entered the

in 1890 and completed the

requirements for a B.S. degree in chemistry with minors in

and

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 to

1896, she was a university fellow in botany at the University of Pennsylvania.

She was a fellow in

from 1897 to

1899, and conducted research with

and

Career

[

]

In 1898, she founded the Philadelphia Clinical Laboratory

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.

In the same

year, she accepted a position with the

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.

U.S. Department of Agriculture

[

]

In 1905, Pennington worked for the

Bureau of Chemistry, which later became the U.S.

Food and Drug Administration.

Her director at the Bureau of Chemistry,

, encouraged her to apply for

a position as chief of the newly created Food Research Laboratory, which had been established to enforce the

of 1906. She was submitted to the position under the name M.E. Pennington in order to hide her gender.

She accepted the position in 1907 and became the first female lab chief.

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

's War Food Administration during World War

Refrigeration engineer and consultant

[

]

Pennington on a railcar in 1910

collecting food samples

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

, 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).

Patents

[

]

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.

In 1927 she and Alex Brooking Davis were issued a U.S. patent for the manufacture of strawboard.

In 1932 she was issued a U.S. patent for a scale for determining the color of egg meat.

In 1935 she and

were issued a U.S. patent for a method of treating eggs.

Later in 1935, she was issued a U.S. patent for a method for freezing eggs.

Memberships

[

]

She was a member of the

and the Society of Biological Chemists. She became a Fellow of the

in 1947, and was also a Fellow of the American Society of

Refrigerating Engineers.

She was also a member of the Philadelphia Pathological Society,

, and the

sorority.

Awards received while alive

[

]

In 1919, she was awarded the Notable Service Medal by President

for her work in refrigeration. In 1940,

she became the second recipient of the

, then called the Francis P. Garvan Medal, from the

Death

[

]

Pennington died on December 27, 1952,

in New York, and was interred at

in Philadelphia,

Pennsylvania.

Posthumous recognition

[

]

In 1959 she became the first woman elected to the Poultry Historical Society Hall of Fame.

She was inducted into

the

in 2002, the

Hall of Fame in 2007,

and the

in 2018.

Publications

[

]

, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1896, 18, 1, 38–67, January 1, 1896

, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1910

, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1913

, Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1915

, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of

Agriculture, 1916

, Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1918

, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of

Agriculture, 1918