Mary Engle Pennington: The woman who transformed America's food safety standards

Mary Engle Pennington faced barriers to studying science simply because she was a woman, but went on to become one of America's leading food safety pioneers. After her request to study chemistry was rejected by her school's headmistress, she pursued higher education at the University of Pennsylvania, where women were not awarded degrees at the time. She eventually earned a doctorate in chemistry in 1895 and became the first woman to head the Food Research Laboratory in 1906. Her research transformed the preservation, refrigeration, storage and transportation of perishable foods, helping establish food safety standards across the United States.How did Mary Engle Pennington break barriers in science educationPennington's interest in science developed when she was just 12 years old. After borrowing a copy of Rand's Medical Chemistry from her local library, she became fascinated by the subject. She subsequently asked the headmistress of the private girls' school she attended to introduce a chemistry course. However, her request was rejected because the headmistress believed chemistry was not a subject for girls or women.According to the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Pennington continued pursuing her scientific interests despite the restrictions placed on women's education at the time. When she turned 18, she enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied chemistry and biology.