For greater than a century, ladies and racial minorities have fought for entry to schooling and employment alternatives as soon as reserved completely for white males. The lifetime of Yvonne Younger “Y.Y.” Clark is a testomony to the ability of perseverance in that struggle. As a wise Black girl who shattered the boundaries imposed by race and gender, she made historical past a number of occasions throughout her profession in academia and business.
She most likely is finest generally known as the primary girl to function a college member intheengineering faculty at Tennessee State College, in Nashville. Her pioneering spirit prolonged far past the classroom, nevertheless, as she repeatedly staked out new territory for girls and Black professionals in engineering. She completed rather a lot earlier than she died on 27 January 2019 at her dwelling in Nashville on the age of 89.
Clark is the topic of the newest biography in IEEE-USA’s Well-known Ladies Engineers in Historical past collection. “Don’t Give Up” was her mantra.
An early ardour for know-how
Born on 13 April 1929 in Houston, Clark moved along with her household to Louisville,Ky., as a child. She was raised in an academically pushed family. Her father, Dr. Coleman M. Younger Jr., was a surgeon. Her mom, Hortense H. Younger, was a library scientist and journalist. Her mom’s “Tense Subjects” column, printed by the Louisville Defender newspaper, tackled segregation, housing discrimination, and civil rights points, instilling consciousness of social justice in Y.Y.
Clark’s ardour for know-how turned evident at a younger age. As a baby, she secretly repaired her household’s malfunctioning toaster, stunning her mother and father. It was a defining second, signaling to her household that she was destined for a profession in engineering—not in schooling like her older sister, a highschool math trainer.
“Y.Y.’s household didn’t create her ardour or her skills. These have been her personal,” stated Carol Sutton Lewis, co-host and producer for the third season of the “Misplaced Ladies of Science” podcast, on which Clark was profiled. “What her household did do, and what they might proceed to do, was make her pursuits viable in a world that wasn’t honest.”
Clark’s curiosity in learning engineering was precipitated by her ardour for aeronautics. She stated all of the pilots she spoke with had studied engineering, so she was decided to take action. She joined the Civil Air Patrol and took simulated flying classes. She then realized to fly an airplane with the assistance of a household good friend.
Regardless of her tutorial excellence, although, racial boundaries stood in her means. She graduated at age 16 from Louisville’s Central Excessive Facultyin 1945. Her mother and father, involved that she was too younger to attend faculty, despatched her to Boston for 2 further years on the Ladies’ Latin Faculty and Roxbury Memorial Excessive Faculty.
She then utilized to the College of Louisville, the place she was initially accepted and provided a full scholarship. When college directors realized she was Black, nevertheless, they rescinded the scholarship and the admission, Clark stated on the “Misplaced Ladies of Science” podcast, which included clips from when her daughter interviewed her in 2007. As Clark defined within the interview, the state of Kentucky provided to pay her tuition to attend Howard College, a traditionally Black faculty in Washington, D.C., quite than combine its publicly funded college.
Breaking boundaries in increased schooling
Though Howard offered a possibility, it was not freed from discrimination. Clark confronted gender-based boundaries, in accordance with the IEEE-USA biography. She was the one girl amongst 300 mechanical engineeringcollege students, a lot of whom have been World Warfare II veterans.
“Y.Y.’s household didn’t create her ardour or her skills. These have been her personal. What her household did do, and what they might proceed to do, was make her pursuits viable in a world that wasn’t honest.” —Carol Sutton Lewis
Regardless of the challenges, she persevered and in 1951 turned the primary girl to earn a bachelor’s diploma in mechanical engineering from the college. The varsity downplayed her historic achievement, nevertheless. The truth is, she was not allowed to march along with her classmates at commencement. As a substitute, she obtained her diploma throughout a personal ceremony within the college president’s workplace.
A profession outlined by firsts
Decided to forge a profession in engineering, Clark repeatedly encountered racial and gender discrimination. In a 2007 Society of Ladies Engineers (SWE) StoryCorps interview, she recalled that when she utilized for an engineering place with the U.S. Navy, the interviewer bluntly informed her, “I don’t suppose I can rent you.” When she requested why not, he replied, “You’re feminine, and all engineers exit on a shakedown cruise,” the journey throughout which the efficiency of a ship is examined earlier than it enters service or after it undergoes main adjustments resembling an overhaul. She stated the interviewer informed her, “The omen is: ‘No females on the shakedown cruise.’”
Clark ultimately landed a job with the U.S. Military’s Frankford Arsenal gauge laboratories in Philadelphia, changing into the primary Black girl employed there. She designed gauges and finalized product drawings for the small-arms ammunition and range-finding devices manufactured there. Tensions arose, nevertheless, when a few of her colleagues resented that she earned extra money as a result of extra time pay, in accordance with the IEEE-USA biography. To ease office tensions, the Military diminished her hours, prompting her to hunt different alternatives.
Her future husband, Invoice Clark, noticed the problem she was having securing interviews, and advised she use the gender-neutral identify Y.Y. on her résumé.
The tactic labored. She turned the primary Black girl employed by RCA in 1955. She labored for the firm’s digital tube division in Camden, N.J.
Though she excelled at designing manufacturing unit tools, she encountered extra office hostility.
“Sadly,” the IEEE-USA biography says, she “felt animosity from her colleagues and resentment for her success.”
When Invoice, who had taken a college place as a biochemistry teacher at Meharry Medical School in Nashville, proposed marriage, she eagerly accepted. They married in December 1955, and she or he moved to Nashville.
In 1956 Clark utilized for a full-time place at Ford Motor Co.’sNashville glass plant, the place she had interned through the summers whereas she was a Howard pupil. Regardless of her {qualifications}, she was denied the job as a result of her race and gender, she stated.
She determined to pursue a profession in academia, changing into in 1956 the primary girl to show mechanical engineering at Tennessee State College. In 1965 she turned the primary girl to chairTSU’smechanical engineering division.
Whereas instructing at TSU, she pursued additional schooling, incomes a grasp’s diploma in engineering administration from Nashville’s Vanderbilt Collegein 1972—one other step in her lifelong dedication to skilled development.
After 55 years with the college, the place she was additionally a freshman pupil advisor for a lot of that point, Clark retired in 2011 and was named professor emeritus.
A legacy of management and advocacy
Clark’s affect prolonged far past TSU. She was energetic within the Society of Ladies Engineers after changing into its first Black member in 1951.
Racism, nevertheless, adopted her even inside skilled circles.
On the 1957 SWE convention in Houston, the occasion’s lodge initially refused her entry as a result of segregation insurance policies, in accordance with a 2022 profile of Clark. Below stress from the society’s management, the lodge compromised; Clark may attend classes however needed to be escorted by a white girl always and was not allowed to remain within the lodge regardless of having paid for a room. She was reimbursed and as a substitute stayed with family members.
On account of that incident, the SWE vowed by no means once more to carry a convention in a segregated metropolis.
Over the a long time, Clark remained a champion for girls in STEM. In a single SWE interview, she suggested future generations: “Put together your self. Do your work. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, and profit by assembly with different ladies. No matter you want, study it and pursue it.
“The surroundings is what you make it. Typically the surroundings is hostile, however don’t fear about it. Pay attention to it so that you aren’t blindsided.”
Her contributions earned her quite a few accolades together with the 1998 SWE Distinguished Engineering Educator Award and the 2001 Tennessee Society of Skilled Engineers Distinguished Service Award.
A long-lasting impression
Clark’s legacy was not confined to engineering; she was deeply concerned in Nashville neighborhood service. She served on the board of the 18th Avenue Household Enrichment Middle and took part within the Nashville Space Chamber of Commerce. She was energetic within the Hendersonville Space chapter of The Hyperlinks, a volunteer service group for Black ladies, and the Nashville alumnae chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She additionally mentored members of the Boy Scouts, a lot of whom went on to pursue engineering careers.
Clark spent her life flattening boundaries that attempted to impede her. She didn’t simply break the glass ceiling—she engineered a means by means of it for individuals who got here after her.
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