Pearl Young

Background

Pearl Young grew up in North Dakota.

Education

She attended Jamestown College and the University of North Dakota. She graduated with a bachelor"s degree in 1919 with honors, a Phi Beta Kappa key and a triple major in physics, chemistry and mathematics.

Career

She became Chief Technical Editor at National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics"s Langley Instrument Research Laboratory, and an engineering professor She was hired by the University to teach physics in 1922. In 1922 Young was hired as a physicist by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), and was assigned to the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory"s Instrument Research Division under the direction of Henry J.E. Reid.

In 1929 Reid appointed Young as Langley"s Chief Technical Editor.

Young wrote National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics"s Style Manual for Engineering Authors, a reference work which had which had lasting influence at Langley and elsewhere at National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. In 1943, Young left the Langley lab to go to National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics"s new Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio, which became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Lewis Research Center. In 1947 she went to Pennsylvania State University to be an assistant professor of engineering physics.

She returned to the Lewis Research Center in 1958. National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was incorporated into National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1958.

Over her twenty eight years at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Young helped define the public image of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and influenced the way the United States. government"s aeronautical engineers communicated in publication.

Young retired in 1961 from National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and taught physics for another year at Fresno State University. She then turned her full-time attentions to researching a biography of aviation pioneer Octave Chanute. Chanute is one of the most important figures in the history of aviation.

In addition to his own experimentation with flight in the late 19th century, he was the "central disseminator of aeronautical developments around the world." She compiled her findings in various article and pamphlets.

A theater at National Aeronautics and Space Administration Langley was named for Pearl Young in 1995. Archives of Pearl Young"s papers are at the Denver Public Library.

Achievements

• She established an office, hired staff and formed the research reports and official documents that communicated the extraordinary technical accomplishments of Langley.