CALF_News_February_March_2021

30 CALF News • February | March 2021 • www.calfnews.net By Patti Wilson Contributing Editor C an you imagine a world with- out refrigeration? My guess is, we would all be hungry or sick. Yet how many of us know about the lady who is responsible for the advancement of food preservation? The first half of the 20 th century was a game-changing time, and Mary Engle Pennington’s story is remarkable in its professional content; it’s unbelievable in her personal journey. Driven from the Start Born in 1872 in Nashville, Tenn., Pen- nington’s parents moved to Philadelphia with Mary and her younger sister to be close to her mother’s family. They were devoted Quakers and well off. Pennington’s parents were success- ful, having established a business in label manufacturing. They lived in a three-story brick house located near the University of Pennsylvania. The couple was supportive of the girls’ interests and encouraged them to learn and grow. Pennington had an insatiable appetite for reading; as a youngster, she fre- quented the public library. When she was 12 years old, she ran across a book on medical chemistry. It tripped a hammer that would set off a lifetime of learning, research and patent approvals. According to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) history, the young Pennington took her book to the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania and “demanded that a professor there explain to her what she had read.” The professor advised her to go home and “come back when she was could read and write,” he would be glad to explain things later. Pennington’s next step was to accost the headmistress at her all-girl boarding school, demanding that she receive instruc- tion in chemistry. The headmistress turned her back; science was considered an“inap- propriate and unladylike pursuit.” According to PaperAdepts Biography website, Pennington graduated boarding school in 1890. She went straight back to the University of Pennsylvania, and headed for the dean’s office. She wanted to be admitted to the school of science. The 18-year-old impressed the dean so greatly that he agreed to let her enroll. Pennington studied chemistry, biology and hygiene. Two years later, she had completed all requirements for a bachelor’s degree, but the university’s board of directors denied her a diploma; they disapproved of a woman’s presence at the university. Instead, she was given a certificate of proficiency in biology. Pennington wanted to pursue graduate studies and was left ineligible. Luck- ily, two sympathetic faculty members H EROES AMONG US Inappropriate and Unladylike uncovered and invoked a little-used statute that allowed special students into graduate school under extraordinary circumstances. Pennington entered the University of Pennsylvania as a doctoral student in the electrochemical school. She received her Ph.D. in 1895. Further post-graduate studies included chemical botany and a one-year fellow- ship at Yale University. There she took up physiological chemistry, studying the effect colored light had on plant growth. After School From 1898 to 1904, Pennington taught at Women’s Medical College in Philadel- phia. She also opened her own business with a colleague, the Philadelphia Clinical Laboratory. There, according to Paper- Adepts, she gained a favorable reputa- tion, doing bacteriological and chemical analyses on a commercial basis. The Food Revolution Begins The early 1900s ushered in a new era in food safety issues in the U.S. Urban- ization was quickly settling in as the industrial revolution drew large numbers of people into cities. Previous generations had lived in a more rural setting with families subsist- ing on garden produce and raising a little meat on the side. This time was coming to an end. Not only were people living cheek-to- jowl in cityscapes, but food was being transported into town from longer and Mary Engle Pennington as a youth – ambitious, inappropriate and unladylike. Mary Engle Pennington, Mother of Modern Food Preservation. It’s funny how perceptions change over time.