Background

Pennington was born on October 8, 1872 in Nashville, Tennessee, United States; the daughter of Henry and Sarah B. (Molony) Pennington.

Education

Pennington received a certificate of proficiency in chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 1892. Three years later she earned her Doctor of Philosophy degree from the same university.

Also Mary spent an additional two years at the University of Pennsylvania studying chemical botany. Pennington accepted a one-year fellowship, in 1897-1898, at Yale University, where she studied physiological chemistry, teaming with chemist Russell Chittenden to examine the effect colored light had on plant growth.

Career

Pennington began her career as an instructor in physiological chemistry and a director of the Clinical Laboratory at Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1898 and held it for eight years. She served as a research worker in the department of hygiene at the University of Pennsylvania from 1898 to 1901. Mary partnered with university colleague Elizabeth Atkinson and opened the doors to the Philadelphia Clinical Laboratory in 1901. That laboratory conducted bacteriological and chemical analyses.

Also Mary was a bacteriologist with the Philadelphia Bureau of Health, where she raised sanitation standards for the handling of milk and milk products. Then in 1905, she took a position of a bacteriological chemist for the United States Department of Agriculture. Two years later Mary was appointed a chief at Food Research Laboratory and developed standards for the processing of chickens. She was also a head of the investigation into the design of refrigerated railway boxcars and, during World War I, served on Herbert Hoover’s War Food Administration.

In 1919, Pennington left the Food Research Laboratory and moved to New York to run the research department of the American Balsa Company. Three years later she started her own business as a consultant to food storage and shipping companies, which she ran until her retirement in 1952. Mary studied frozen foods and developed improvements for commercial and home refrigeration systems. She managed to convince several major universities to incorporate courses on household refrigeration. In addition, in 1923, Pennington founded the Household Refrigeration Bureau to educate consumers in safe practices in domestic refrigeration.

She did bacteriological analyses for subscribing doctors and developed milk and dairy standards, including checklist procedures for dairy herds that were adopted throughout the United States.

Achievements

• Pennington is known for her contribution to the design of commercial and household refrigerators, refrigerated railway cars and freezers. Also she invented the egg carton.
  
  She was a leading expert in the evolution of safe and sanitary methods for processing, storing and shipping milk, poultry, eggs and fish. Mary was inducted in the National Women’s Hall of Fame and the ASHRAE Hall of Fame.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Prevention of Breakage of Eggs in Transit When Shipped in Carlots (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Prevention of Breakage of Eggs in Transi...)

    2018
  • A Wheatless Ration for the Rapid Increase of Flesh on Young Chickens (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from A Wheatless Ration for the Rapid Increase of...)

    2017
  • A Bacteriological And Chemical Study Of Commercial Eggs In The Producing Districts Of The Central West

    (This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and ...)

    2015
  • Studies on Chicken Fat: III. Influence of Temperature on the Lipolysis of Esters; IV. The Hydrolysis of Chicken Fat by Means of Lipase; V. The ... Fat of the Common Fowl (Gallus Domesticus)

    (Excerpt from Studies on Chicken Fat: III. Influence of Te...)

    2018
  • A study of the preparation of frozen and dried eggs in the producing section 2012

Membership

Pennington was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society of Refrigerating Engineers, American Chemical Society, Society of Biological Chemists, American Institute of Refrigeration, Institute of Food Technological, Institute of American Poultry Industries, Poultry Science Association, Sigma Xi, Kappa Kappa Gamma and Iota Sigma Pi.

Interests

• knitting, sewing, gardening

Connections

Father:

Henry Pennington

Mother:

Sarah B. (Molony) Pennington