The following essay is reproduced with permission. 
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Thirteen years before other women joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, NASA’s predecessor) in technical roles, a young research assistant named Pearl Young was making waves at NASA. Her accomplishments as an outspoken and tenacious advocate for herself and her team will pave the way for women to advance in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics for decades to come.
My interest in Young’s story is based on my own identity as a woman in STEM. I feel empowered to share the stories of women who have made a lasting impact in STEM fields. I am the director of the NASA-funded North Dakota Space Grant Consortium. The consortium aims to foster an open and welcoming environment in STEM fields. Young’s story is one of perseverance in the face of setbacks, advocating for yourself and others, and building a community of support.
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face challenges from the beginning
Young was a scientist, educator, technical editor, and researcher. Born in 1895, she was well aware of the barriers women faced at the time.
In the early 20th century, university degrees in STEM fields were considered “less suitable for women,” and graduates with these degrees were seen as unconventional women. Professors who agreed to mentor women in advanced STEM fields in the 1940s and 1950s were often accused of being communists.
In 1956, the National Science Foundation also published an article titled “Women are not cut out for engineering.”
Despite society’s sexist standards, Young earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of North Dakota in 1919 with a triple major in physics, mathematics, and chemistry. She then began a decades-long career in STEM fields.
Become a technical editor
Despite a culture hostile to women, Young successfully held multiple technical roles at NACA. Drawing on her diverse expertise, she worked in several departments, including physics, instrumentation, and aerodynamics, and quickly noticed trends across the agency. Many of the reports written by her colleagues were not well written to be useful.
In a 1959 interview, Young said of his start at NACA: I am interested in good writing and suggested the need for a technical editor. Engineers didn’t have time to create easy-to-read reports. ”
Three years after expressing her proposal, Young was reassigned in 1935 to the newly created role of assistant technical editor in the publishing department. After serving in that role for six years, Young earned the title of assistant technical editor in 1941.
In 1941, NACA established the Aircraft Engine Laboratory (now known as NASA Glenn Research Center) in Cleveland. The new field center needed experienced employees, so two years later NACA leadership invited Young to head the new technical editorial section there.
It was at the Aircraft Engine Research Institute that Young published his most notable technical work, A Manual of Style for Engineering Authors, in 1943. The NASA History Office even referred to Young as the architect of the NACA technical reporting system.
Young’s style manual allowed government agencies to communicate technological advances to the world. This manual included specific formatting rules for technical writing to increase consistency for engineers and researchers reporting data and experimental results. It was essential to efficient operations in World War II and was translated into multiple languages.
But it wasn’t until after this publication, 11 years after she voiced the need for the role at the agency, that Young was finally promoted to full technical editor-in-chief. Although she was the first person to take on the role, she started at assistant level and had to work her way up to associate before receiving a full technical editor appointment.
Pearl Young “Raising Hell”
Perhaps the most notable aspect of Young’s story is her character. Young often had to challenge authority while defending himself and his colleagues.
She defended the editorial department when her male boss unfairly blamed it for its mistakes. She wrote a formal proposal to properly classify her office as the research division of the Aircraft Engine Research Institute. She regularly recognized the entire team’s contribution to shared accomplishments.
She also wrote a formal memorandum to secure additional personnel to alleviate the unbearable workload and to ensure that colleagues received well-deserved promotions. Young often referred to these acts as “raising hell.”
The archival documents I analyzed show that Young’s performance at NACA was exemplary throughout her career. In 1967, she received the University of North Dakota’s prestigious Sue Award for her professional accomplishments and contributions to the university.
In 1995 and 2014, NASA Langley Research Center dedicated a theater named in her honor. The new theater is located in NASA’s Integrated Engineering Services Building.
In 2015, Young was inducted into the inaugural NASA/NACA Langley Hall of Fame. However, throughout her career, not all of her colleagues shared this positive view of Young and her work.
In 1930, one of Young’s supervisors felt that her progress report needed to assess her “attitude” and suitability as an employee, so he entered these additional words into the document himself. I justified my position.
Later that year, Young requested time off, presumably during the holiday season, prompting another supervisor to draft a formal memorandum to the engineer in charge, a position equivalent to today’s NASA center director. He cited Young’s “attitude” in requesting to use the leave.
Women are not welcome in STEM fields
Although sexism in STEM has changed shape over time, gender-based inequalities still exist. Women in STEM fields frequently face hostile work environments, including microaggressions, marginalization, unequal pay, lack of recognition, and expectations for additional services.
Women often lack supportive social networks and other systemic barriers to career advancement, such as double standards of not being recognized as an authority figure or being perceived as too aggressive rather than as a leader. will be encountered.
Women of color, women in the LGBTQ+ community, and women with one or more disabilities face even more barriers rooted in these intersecting identities.
One way to combat these inequalities is to call attention to systemic barriers by sharing the stories of women who persisted in STEM fields, like Pearl Young.
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