REPOST: Dr. Roger Arliner Young
Join me in celebrating Black History Month! I always love this month because so many incredible stories about perseverance, dedication, hard work, grit, humanism, empathy, and brilliance are shared throughout the entire month, celebrating Black Culture and those noble goddesses who are part of the African American culture.
This week, I want to introduce you to Dr. Roger Arliner Young. Yes, her name was Roger!
Dr. Young was born in Clifton Forge, Virginia, in 1889. Shortly after, she and her family moved to Burgettstown, Pennsylvania. Her family was not affluent. They weren’t even middle-class. They were poor. However, this did not stop Young from pursuing her dreams, which were initially in music. I love this tidbit about her, where she wrote in her yearbook, “Not failure, but low aim is a crime.” You aimed high!
Academically, she struggled. She’d been studying music at Howard University for five years. Then, in 1921, she took her first science class. At this point, Young hit her stride. She knew what she wanted to study and what she wanted to be, and she never wavered in her determination. She fell in love with zoology. She was enthralled with the scientific study of animal life. The structures, physiology, resilience, evolution, behavior, and the survival of animals from their cellular level to their powerful, profound existence in the world.
After that class, for the next two years, she studied from Dr. Ernest Everett Just, an influential Black biologist and head of the zoology department at Howard. Just saw intelligence and aptitude in Young. Even her classmates characterized her as “lively and vivacious.” She participated in different college organizations, including Glee Club, Young Women’s Christian Association, and Howard University Players, a student-run performing arts group. So, she was not only talented, but she also discovered she was brilliant!
Two years after choosing zoology as her field of study, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree. Then she wrote her first and only solo-published paper titled “On the excretory apparatus in paramecium.” It was published in Science magazine’s September 12, 1924 edition. This was a magazine that even accomplished scientists had minimal success of being published in. As the first Black woman to research and publish in the field of zoology, this was a tremendous success for Young.
Eager to go on to graduate school for her Master’s, Just tried to help her find funding but to no avail. Nevertheless, Young was unstoppable. She knew what she wanted, and she pursued it. So, in 1924, she enrolled at the University of Chicago on a part-time basis. Two years later, she graduated with her Masters in Zoology.
While at the University of Chicago her grades improved even more, so much that she was elected to the Sigma Xi Honorary Society. This was quite an accomplishment because to be invited to the Sigma Xi Honorary Society, one had to be a doctoral candidate, which she wasn’t. Young was still working on her Master’s.
After she received her Master’s, Just hired Young to assist him as a professor of zoology in his department at Howard University.
Back at Howard University, she worked with Just, helping him manage the workload with his classes and assisting him in the lab. She also collaborated with him as his research assistant at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, for two years between 1927 and 1929. While at Woods Hole, she found a second home. For the next nine years, she would visit Woods Hole and work in the laboratory every summer. She was the first Black woman to join the scientific community in Woods Hole. However, there was still a lot of interracial bias at this time. In addition, Young realized that some of her challenges weren’t just because she was Black but also because she was a woman. Nevertheless, she continued her research and gained the respect of many of her peers and mentors.
From 1927–1928, Just had been developing new research that included the effect of ultraviolet light on the development of marine eggs. So, after Young received her Master’s degree, she was back at Howard working for Just. Her workload was tremendous, especially after Just traveled to Europe on a research grant. She carried his workload and seized every spare minute she had to write proposals for funding to continue her doctoral studies. Yes, despite the workload, she kept moving forward. In the summer of 1929, Young went to Woods Hole, where she worked alongside embryologist Frank Lillie from the University of Chicago.
This was an advantageous summer for her. The general educational board rewarded her with the fellowship so that she could continue with her doctoral studies. So shortly after Just returned from England, Young left for the University of Chicago to study from Lillie and prepare for her qualifying exams to enter her doctoral studies.
In January 1930, just one week before Young was to take her qualifying exams, Just left for Europe again. She was overwhelmed by taking on Just’s duties and preparing for her exams. And she was struggling physically. The work with ultraviolet light she had been doing for Just permanently damaged her eyes. She was also struggling financially because she solely carried the financial burden of taking care of her mother, who was sick. She didn’t have enough money for research, travel, or her family. Like so many other graduate students, she suffered the emotional and physical demands of America’s academia that seldom provides a healthy work-life balance.
As a result, she failed the qualifying exams, and the University of Chicago denied her acceptance.
Then, things got worse. Because Young was denied acceptance to the University of Chicago, her place at Howard became precarious. Just and the president of Howard University, Mordecai Johnson, had plans for the zoology department. The department had been awarded a grant of $80,000. That’s a lot of money for 1930. They had assumed that Young would complete her PhD and then return to help the department flourish. However, after being denied by Chicago, Young was emotionally shattered.
Upon her departure, she wrote to Dr. Lillie, saying, “The trouble is that for two years, I’ve tried to keep going under responsibilities that were not wholly mine but were not shared, and the weight of it has simply worn me out.” In short, Young was exhausted.
Nevertheless, back at Howard, she kept moving forward. That summer of 1930, she went to Woods Hole to work in the lab alongside Dr. V.L. Heilbrunn of the University of Pennsylvania and his student, Donald P. Costello. All three worked together conducting marine egg studies.
From 1931 to 1935, Young’s position at Howard became difficult and questionable to the university. Even though Just had convinced Young to stay at Howard, even though she was offered a position at Spelman College in 1931, their working relationship fell apart. Just had been ignoring her and treating her coldly. Meanwhile, Johnson, Howard’s president, informed Just that he needed to make budget cuts and to let one of his three junior professors go. So, when Young confronted Just about his attitude towards her, he impulsively fired her.
Wini Warren, the author of the book Black Women Scientists in the United States, perfectly explains that “perhaps one of the most crucial elements in Young’s fate at Howard University was that the school’s power elite was not particularly supportive of women during this period.” Young had so much going for her. But like many Black women, even today, her career suffered because of race and gender bias.
But that didn’t stop her. She kept going. She continued to work with Heilbrunn and Costello. Together, they wrote three papers for Biological Bulletin that were published in 1935, 1938, and 1939. In 1937, she was accepted into the doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania. She received a two-year grant from the General Education Board to study there. She finally, finally, finally earned her doctorate!
Shortly after that, she obtained a position at North Carolina College for Negroes in Raleigh, North Carolina. After that, she was hired as the head of the Biology Department at Shaw University. In 1947, she returned to North Carolina College as a Biology professor. Unfortunately, though, she could never get ahead of her financial difficulties. She could no longer afford to go to Woods Hole to conduct more research. Additionally, North Carolina and Shaw could not afford the research equipment necessary for her to conduct research at the school.
Her mother finally passed away in 1953, which, again, shattered her. Emotionally, she couldn’t rationalize. She began to have a psychological breakdown and a financial breakdown as coworkers whispered about her mental state. Broken and distressed, she checked herself into the Mississippi Mental Asylum in Whitfield. Even though she was discharged in 1962 and held a position as a temporary visiting lecturer at Southern University in Louisiana, she continued to struggle with emotional stability.
Wini Warren writes that perhaps her ten-year working relationship with Just did not allow her to outgrow her dependence on her mentor. Maybe she had become so reliant on her mentor that she had been conditioned not to think for herself. Based on her confidence and determination in her undergraduate years, if she had been weaned off the enabling of her mentor, she might have overcome the challenges that academia and life presented her with. And because of that, and again, I have to say, the lack of work-life balance in academia, Young couldn’t quite overcome her personal difficulties. She might have taken that position at Spelman College in 1931. She might have lived a different life. She might have found her niche and success in academia.
Finally, on November 9, 1964, Dr. Roger Arliner Young passed away in New Orleans, Louisiana. She was the first Black American woman to get her doctorate in zoology, and she didn’t just forge a path for black women in zoology; she blazed it. She was a scientist in an age long before civil rights. She overcame numerous obstacles to pursue her dreams. Every day, as she found joy in discovery, she had to push against the world of academia that held on to the antiquated belief that women didn’t belong in science. And when some of her pursuits failed, she tried again. She had tenacity, determination, and grit. She never gave up on her dream to get her doctorate and do research. When her personal situation became enormously difficult, the science that she loved so much gave her hope.