Women in Science: Roger Arliner Young

by Abigail Knowles Wolfe (BPRW)

Women’s History Month, celebrated annually during the month of March, celebrates the remarkable, historic achievements American women have made, working to ensure that this history will be recognized and celebrated in a number of forums. Knowledge of women’s history, especially women’s struggles for civil rights, including the right to vote, work and attend institutions of higher learning provides a more substantial look at the injustices women have had to face and overcome as well as the great things women are destined to do in the future.

Roger Arliner Young is a name probably unfamiliar to many. An African American woman born at the turn of the 20th century (1899), Young worked in the fields of biology, marine biology and zoology and was the first African American woman to receive a doctoral degree in the field of zoology.

Despite a chronically ill mother whose care took a great toll on the entire family, Young managed to complete a bachelor’s degree at Howard University under the mentoring and guidance of foremost black biologist Ernest Everett Just. Her graduate studies took her to the University of Chicago where she began to publish. She completed her PhD at the University of Pennsylvania in 1940 and taught briefly in North Carolina, Texas and Mississippi.

Although Young’s life struggles and the end of her life, fraught with mental illness, appear tragic to many, her contributions to science were great and she paved the way for many women to follow. Roger Arliner Young published a reported four papers between 1935 and 1938 and wrote several books. Women like Young fought tooth and nail to achieve what many would’ve otherwise thought impossible. This perspective should serve to encourage young girls and women to see the big picture of women’s history and to dream big in terms of their own studies and contributions to the world.