Ruth Benerito
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Ruth Mary Rogan Benerito (January 12, 1916 – October 5, 2013) was an American chemist and inventor known for her work related to the
textile industry The textile industry is primarily concerned with the design, production and distribution of yarn, cloth and clothing. The raw material may be natural, or synthetic using products of the chemical industry. Industry process Cotton manufacturi ...
, notably including the development of wash-and-wear
cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...
fabrics. She held 55
patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
s.


Personal life

Ruth Mary Rogan Benerito was born and raised in
New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster.
; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...
in 1916. Her father, John Edward Rogan, was a civil engineer and railroad official and was described by his daughter as a pioneer in women's liberation movement. Her mother, Bernadette Elizardi Rogan, was an artist and considered a "truly liberated woman" by her daughter. Both parents were college graduates and imposed their values regarding a strong sense of education and women's rights onto Ruth. The Great Depression era surrounded Ruth Benerito's early years and when she eventually received her B.S. in
Chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...
, one in five Americans was unemployed. Benerito's original interest preceding chemistry was math; however, she did not want to foster a career as an actuary simply estimating probabilities for insurance companies, which led her to study chemistry. Later in her life as she reflected on her many achievements, the true essence of her character was illustrated when she said, "I believe that whatever success that I have attained is the result of many efforts of many people. My very personal success was built from the help and sacrifices of members of my family, and professional accomplishments resulted from the efforts of early teachers and the cooperativeness of colleagues too many to enumerate."


Education

In an age when girls did not usually go on to
higher education Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completi ...
, her father made sure his daughters received the same education available to boys. Benerito completed
high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...
at age 14 and entered Sophie Newcomb College, the women's college at Tulane University, at age 15 where she earned a degree in chemistry, as well as physics and math. She graduated in 1935 and moved to Bryn Mawr College to complete one year of graduate studies. She then moved to Newcomb, where she taught chemistry while researching advanced quantitative analysis and physical chemistry, organic chemistry, kinetics, and thermodynamics. While working as a teacher, Benerito took night classes to earn her master's degree from Tulane University. In 1948 she received her doctorate degree from the University of Chicago, where she conducted physical chemical research under the direction of Thomas F. Young. Her Ph.D dissertation was titled "Activity Coefficients of HCl in Ternary Aqueous Solutions". She left her job as an assistant professor in Newcomb College in 1953 to work at the USDA Southern Regional Research Center of the US Department of Agriculture in New Orleans, where she spent most of her career.Grinstein, L. S.; Rose, R. K.; Rafailovich, M. H. Women in Chemistry and Physics Westport 1993 At the USDA she worked in the Intravenous Fat Program of the OilSeed Laboratory, and in 1955 she was promoted to project leader. In 1958 she was promoted to acting head of the Colloid Cotton Chemical Laboratory, and in 1959 she became the research leader of the Physical Chemistry Research Group of the Cotton Reaction Laboratory. Benerito completed a postdoctoral fellowship in 1972 in biophysics at Tulane University. Still at Tulane, she was an
adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, however the genera ...
from 1960 to 1981. During that time, she also worked as a lecturer at the University of New Orleans. In later years, while she was researching cotton fibers, Benerito taught classes part-time at Tulane University and at the
University of New Orleans The University of New Orleans (UNO) is a public research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is a member of the University of Louisiana System and the Urban 13 association. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High rese ...
. She retired from the USDA in 1986 but continued to teach part-time at Tulane and the
University of New Orleans The University of New Orleans (UNO) is a public research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is a member of the University of Louisiana System and the Urban 13 association. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High rese ...
.


Contribution


Invention of wrinkle-free cotton

Benerito is most famous for her work relating to the use of mono-basic acid chlorides in the production of cotton, with which she had 55 patents. She invented these wash-and-wear cotton fabrics, which allow for more wrinkle-free and durable clothing, while working at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) laboratories in New Orleans in the 1950s. Before this innovation, a family needed considerable time to iron clothes. Benerito found a way to chemically treat the surface of cotton that led not only to wrinkle-resistant fabric but also to stain- and flame-resistant fabrics. The invention was said to have "saved the cotton industry." While she is publicly credited for the invention of wrinkle-free fiber, she did not believe she singlehandedly invented it. She clarified her role in a 2004 USDA interview by stating, "I don't like it to be said that I invented wash-wear because there were any number of people worked on it and the various processes by which you give cotton those properties. No one person discovered it or is responsible for it, but I contributed to a new process of doing it." The secret of the invention is the use of a process known as
crosslinking Cross-linking may refer to *Cross-link In chemistry and biology a cross-link is a bond or a short sequence of bonds that links one polymer chain to another. These links may take the form of covalent bonds or ionic bonds and the polymers ca ...
. Cotton is composed of a natural polymeric material called
cellulose Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of β(1→4) linked D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important structural component of the primary cell wall ...
. Like
nylon Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers composed of polyamides ( repeating units linked by amide links).The polyamides may be aliphatic or semi-aromatic. Nylon is a silk-like thermoplastic, generally made from petro ...
and
synthetic Synthetic things are composed of multiple parts, often with the implication that they are artificial. In particular, 'synthetic' may refer to: Science * Synthetic chemical or compound, produced by the process of chemical synthesis * Synthetic o ...
polyesters, cellulose is a
polymer A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...
; that is, its molecules are shaped like long chains containing many thousands of
atoms Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons. Every solid, liquid, gas, an ...
. The long, chainlike shape of the molecules is what makes cellulose, like nylon and polyester, a good fiber. Benerito discovered a way to treat cotton fibers so that the chainlike cellulose molecules were joined together chemically. This procedure is known as crosslinking, and it makes cotton resistant to wrinkling. Her innovation was discovering an additive that chemically attached to cellulose chains and smoothed the surface. It was first thought that crosslinking was making the cotton fabric wrinkle resistant by strengthening its fibers, but the amount of crosslinking used in Benerito's treatment is small and does not add much strength. She developed a new theory on how crosslinking works. It is known that cellulose molecules can stick to each other by means of the weak
hydrogen bonds In chemistry, a hydrogen bond (or H-bond) is a primarily electrostatic force of attraction between a hydrogen (H) atom which is covalently bound to a more electronegative "donor" atom or group (Dn), and another electronegative atom bearing a ...
between molecules. She proposed that one side effect of her crosslinking process was the strengthening of the hydrogen bonds, which made the material resistant to wrinkling.


Laboratory equipment

Benerito's research led to the development of glassy fibers that proved useful in the manufacture of laboratory equipment.


Method of feeding seriously wounded soldiers

Besides her contribution to textile industry, during the
Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
, Benerito developed a way to give fat intravenously to patients who were too sick to eat—a method used to feed seriously wounded soldiers.


Awards

*1964 USDA Distinguished Service Award *1968 Federal Woman Award *1968 Southern Chemist Award *1970
Garvan Medal Garvan may refer to: People *Francis Patrick Garvan (1875–1937), American lawyer, president of the Chemical Foundation *Genevieve Garvan Brady (1880–1938), American philanthropist and Papal duchess * Garvan McCarthy (born 1981), retired Irish s ...
*1971 Southwest Regional Award of
American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all d ...
*1981 Honorary degree, Tulane University *1984 Woman of Achievement at World's Fair *2002 Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award *2008 National Inventors Hall of Fame induction


References


External links


2008 Chicago Tribune biography

Patents by Inventor Ruth R. Benerito
{{DEFAULTSORT:Benerito, Ruth Rogan 1916 births 2013 deaths 20th-century American chemists 20th-century American inventors 20th-century American women scientists American women chemists Recipients of the Garvan–Olin Medal Scientists from New Orleans Textile scientists Tulane University alumni Women inventors United States Department of Agriculture people 21st-century American women H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College alumni