For greater than a century, girls and racial minorities have fought for get right of entry to to training and employment alternatives as soon as reserved solely for white males. The generation of Yvonne Young “Y.Y.” Clark is a testomony to the ability of perseverance in that battle. As a mischievous Dark girl who shattered the obstacles imposed through race and gender, she made historical past more than one instances throughout her profession in academia and business.
She more than likely is perfect referred to as the primary girl to grant as a school member intheengineering college at Tennessee State University, in Nashville. Her pioneering spirit prolonged some distance past the school room, alternatively, as she often staked out unutilized field for ladies and Dark execs in engineering. She achieved a accumulation prior to she died on 27 January 2019 at her house in Nashville on the generation of 89.
Clark is the topic of the original biography in IEEE-USA’s Famous Women Engineers in History line. “Don’t Give Up” used to be her mantra.
An early interest for generation
Born on 13 April 1929 in Houston, Clark moved along with her public to Louisville,Ky., as a toddler. She used to be raised in an academically pushed household. Her father, Dr. Coleman M. Younger Jr., used to be a surgeon. Her mom, Hortense H. Younger, used to be a library scientist and journalist. Her mom’s “Tense Topics” column, revealed through the Louisville Defender newspaper, tackled segregation, housing discrimination, and civil rights problems, instilling consciousness of social justice in Y.Y.
Clark’s interest for generation become unmistakable at a tender generation. As a kid, she secretly repaired her public’s malfunctioning toaster, unexpected her folks. It used to be a defining time, signaling to her public that she used to be destined for a profession in engineering—now not in training like her used sister, a highschool math educator.
“Y.Y.’s family didn’t create her passion or her talents. Those were her own,” mentioned Carol Sutton Lewis, co-host and manufacturer for the 3rd season of the “Lost Women of Science” podcast, on which Clark used to be profiled. “What her family did do, and what they would continue to do, was make her interests viable in a world that wasn’t fair.”
Clark’s pastime in finding out engineering used to be brought about through her interest for aeronautics. She mentioned the entire pilots she spoke with had studied engineering, so she used to be aspiring to take action. She joined the Civil Air Patrol and took simulated gliding classes. She after discovered to fly an plane with the assistance of a public buddy.
Regardless of her educational excellence, although, racial obstacles stand in her method. She graduated at generation 16 from Louisville’s Central High Schoolin 1945. Her folks, involved that she used to be too younger to wait faculty, despatched her to Boston for 2 extra years on the Girls’ Latin School and Roxbury Memorial High School.
She after carried out to the University of Louisville, the place she used to be to begin with approved and introduced a complete scholarship. When college directors learned she used to be Dark, alternatively, they rescinded the scholarship and the admission, Clark mentioned at the “Lost Women of Science” podcast, which integrated clips from when her daughter interviewed her in 2007. As Clark defined within the interview, the atmosphere of Kentucky introduced to pay her tuition to wait Howard University, a traditionally Dark faculty in Washington, D.C., in lieu than combine its publicly funded college.
Breaking obstacles in upper training
Even supposing Howard supplied a possibility, it used to be now not detached of discrimination. Clark confronted gender-based obstacles, in step with the IEEE-USA biography. She used to be the one girl amongst 300 mechanical engineeringscholars, a lot of whom have been International Battle II veterans.
“Y.Y.’s family didn’t create her passion or her talents. Those were her own. What her family did do, and what they would continue to do, was make her interests viable in a world that wasn’t fair.” —Carol Sutton Lewis
Regardless of the demanding situations, she continued and in 1951 become the primary girl to earn a bachelor’s stage in mechanical engineering from the college. The college downplayed her historical fulfillment, alternatively. Actually, she used to be now not allowed to march along with her classmates at commencement. Rather, she won her degree throughout a non-public rite within the college president’s place of business.
A profession outlined through firsts
Ambitious to forge a profession in engineering, Clark time and again encountered racial and gender discrimination. In a 2007 Society of Women Engineers (SWE) StoryCorps interview, she recalled that after she carried out for an engineering place with the U.S. Navy, the interviewer bluntly informed her, “I don’t think I can hire you.” When she requested why now not, he answered, “You’re female, and all engineers go out on a shakedown cruise,” the commute throughout which the efficiency of a ship is examined prior to it enters carrier or then it undergoes major modifications equivalent to an overhaul. She mentioned the interviewer informed her, “The omen is: ‘No females on the shakedown cruise.’”
Clark ultimately landed a task with the U.S. Military’s Frankford Arsenal gauge laboratories in Philadelphia, turning into the primary Dark girl leased there. She designed gauges and finalized product drawings for the small-arms ammunition and range-finding tools manufactured there. Tensions arose, alternatively, when a few of her colleagues resented that she earned extra money because of additional time pay, in step with the IEEE-USA biography. To holiday workplace tensions, the Military decreased her hours, prompting her to hunt alternative alternatives.
Her hour husband, Invoice Clark, noticed the trouble she used to be having securing interviews, and recommended she significance the gender-neutral identify Y.Y. on her résumé.
The strategy labored. She become the primary Dark girl leased through RCA in 1955. She labored for the company’s electronic tube division in Camden, N.J.
Even supposing she excelled at designing manufacturing facility apparatus, she encountered extra place of job hostility.
“Sadly,” the IEEE-USA biography says, she “felt animosity from her colleagues and resentment for her success.”
When Invoice, who had taken a school place as a biochemistry trainer at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, proposed marriage, she gladly approved. They married in December 1955, and he or she moved to Nashville.
In 1956 Clark carried out for a full-time place at Ford Motor Co.’sNashville glass plant, the place she had interned throughout the summers past she used to be a Howard pupil. Regardless of her {qualifications}, she used to be denied the process because of her race and gender, she mentioned.
She made up our minds to pursue a profession in academia, turning into in 1956 the primary girl to show mechanical engineering at Tennessee Climate College. In 1965 she become the primary girl to chairTSU’smechanical engineering section.
Pace instructing at TSU, she pursued additional training, incomes a grasp’s stage in engineering management from Nashville’s Vanderbilt Universityin 1972—every other step in her lifelong loyalty to skilled enlargement.
Later 55 years with the college, the place she used to be additionally a freshman pupil consultant for a lot of that moment, Clark retired in 2011 and used to be named tutor emeritus.
A legacy of management and advocacy
Clark’s affect prolonged some distance past TSU. She used to be energetic within the Society of Women Engineers then turning into its first Dark member in 1951.
Racism, alternatively, adopted her even inside skilled circles.
On the 1957 SWE convention in Houston, the development’s resort to begin with refused her access because of segregation insurance policies, in step with a 2022 profile of Clark. Below drive from the community’s management, the resort compromised; Clark may attend classes however needed to be escorted through a white girl all the time and used to be now not allowed to stick within the resort regardless of having paid for a room. She used to be reimbursed and rather stayed with kinfolk.
On account of that incident, the SWE vowed by no means once more to secure a convention in a segregated town.
Over the a long time, Clark remained a champion for ladies in STEM. In a single SWE interview, she prompt hour generations: “Prepare yourself. Do your work. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, and benefit by meeting with other women. Whatever you like, learn about it and pursue it.
“The environment is what you make it. Sometimes the environment is hostile, but don’t worry about it. Be aware of it so you aren’t blindsided.”
Her contributions earned her diverse accolades together with the 1998 SWE Outstanding Engineering Tutor Award and the 2001 Tennessee Nation of Skilled Engineers Outstanding Carrier Award.
An enduring affect
Clark’s legacy used to be now not confined to engineering; she used to be deeply inquisitive about Nashville public carrier. She served at the board of the 18th Avenue Family Enrichment Center and took part within the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. She used to be energetic within the Hendersonville Segment bankruptcy of The Links, a volunteer carrier group for Dark girls, and the Nashville alumnae bankruptcy of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She additionally mentored individuals of the Boy Scouts, a lot of whom went directly to pursue engineering careers.
Clark spent her generation flattening obstacles that attempted to obstruct her. She didn’t simply crack the glass ceiling—she engineered some way via it for nation who got here then her.
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