Do you know about the woman who
saved the American space program?
How about the woman who helped
advance the treatment of leprosy?
Can you name the first American woman
to ever receive a Ph.D. in Chemistry?
Their accomplishments were nearly lost
to history, but now, Reactions celebrates
some of the great unsung women of chemistry.
(Legends intro splash)
In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the
first earth-orbiting satellite, Sputnik.
When the first pings of that Soviet
satellite were heard in the U.S.,
scientists went into overdrive.
At the time, most American rockets
were still exploding on the
Launchpad at the time.
And if they made it into the air,
they didn’t have enough power to get into orbit.
The answer to our power problem was
better fuel, and that’s exactly where
Mary Sherman Morgan comes in.
Mary worked at North American Aviation,
the company tasked with finding
a better rocket fuel.
She was the only woman out of 900
scientists working at North American
Aviation, and the only one
without a college degree.
Mary and her team delivered a new
propellant cocktail called “hydyne”
to power the army’s Jupiter C rocket,
which was developed by the much
more-famous Wernher Von Braun.
On January 31, 1958 the Jupiter C
with the help of hydyne – delivered
America’s first satellite to space.
Dubbed Explorer I, the satellite’s
successful launch was just the boost
the American space program needed.
Without Mary, the U.S. would have continued
to trail behind the USSR in the space race.
Mary’s work was top secret,
and she kept it that way.
She was also fiercely private,
and her accomplishments were lost
among a litany of other amazing
space achievements since.
When she died, her son George
sat down with some of her former
North American Aviation colleagues.
One leaned over and said “your mom
single-handedly saved America’s space program.
And nobody knows it but a handful of old men.”
Decades before Mary Sherman Morgan was
working at the chemist’s bench, Alice Ball
was working on a better treatment for
a very old disease- Leprosy.
In 1873, we learn thanks to Dr. Gerhard Hansen,
that leprosy was caused by a bacteria.
We knew the cause’ and now
we needed a better treatment.
At the time the best treatment for leprosy,
was injections of Chaulmoogra nut oil.
But the results were spotty,
the side effects were unpleasant and
the injections were painful.
Despite all of this – scientists and physicians
kept coming back to chaulmoogra nut oil.
Something in it seemed to help some patients.
But what was it?
That’s where Alice comes in.
Alice was a wiz at natural products
chemistry, just the kind of work that
was needed on Chaulmoogra nut oil.
By early 1916, she’d cracked it.
She developed a process to isolate
the active constituents of Chaulmoogra
nut oil, which were fatty acids,
in the form of ethyl esters.
Injection of these ethyl esters provided
more effective relief of leprosy symptoms
with considerably less pain
and discomfort than shots of the oil.
The new treatment was used for decades afterwards.
Sadly, 1916 would also see the end of
Alice’s all-to-brief career in chemistry.
On New Years Eve, at just 24-years-old,
Alice died.
She never got to see the impact her work had on the treatment of leprosy.
And for long time, Alice never got credit.
After her death, another chemist at
the college continued her project,
but published without any mention of her
or her previous work.
It was decades before the extent of Alice’s contributions were recognized.
Almost 90 years after her death,
Alice Ball was awarded the University of
Hawaii's Regents' Medal of Distinction.
Finally, I want to shout out an
exceptional woman from my alma mater,
University of Nebraska Lincoln.
Rachel Lloyd was a woman of “firsts”.
In the 1881, she was the first woman
to publish research in a major American chemistry journal.
In 1887, she was the first American
and the second woman in the entire world
to receive a Ph.D. in chemistry.
That same year, Dr. Lloyd became one
of the first female professors at
a co-ed institution, U-N-L.
Not everyone was thrilled to have her there.
Just a year after her arrival, Dr. Lloyd
survived an attempt by the chancellor
to get rid of her – allegedly because of her Quaker religion.
But the UNL faculty supported Dr. Lloyd
with a vote of confidence.
Months later, the chancellor was gone and
Dr. Lloyd was promoted to full professor.
At UNL, Dr. Lloyd’s research helped
sugar beets become a major Nebraska
crop and made sugar production
a viable industry in the state.
Today, Nebraska is 6th in the nation
for sugar beet production - an industry
that brings in millions to the state economy.
You’d think Dr. Lloyd’s life story
and professional achievements
would be better known, but details
were nearly lost to history.
Thankfully, due to a time capsule
unearthed at UNL last year, we know
more about Dr. Lloyd’s pioneering work.
We need pioneers like Mary Sherman Morgan,
Alice Ball, and Dr. Rachel Lloyd – explorers
with grit and determination, though these
three didn’t always get the glory.
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And don’t forget to check out our other Legends of Chemistry videos:
Accidental Discoveries That Changed
the World and Tricking the Nazis
and Transforming Medicine.