New York’s Own – Page 6 – The Exasperated Historian

403) Barbi Benton

403: Barbi Benton

Model, Actress, and Singer

Born: 28 January 1950, New York City, New York, United States of America

Born Name: Barbara Lynn Klein

Barbi is known for appearing in Playboy and for acting in four seasons of Hee Haw. Her other acting credits include Fantasy Island and The Love Boat.

She previously had a relationship with Hugh Hefner, beginning when she was eighteen and he was forty-two.

She also recorded several studio albums in the 1970’s.

Barbi is married with two children. These days, she works as an interior decorator.

Sources:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0072902/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

https://www.worldation.com/stories/staying-power-story-barbi-benton/

402) Barbra Streisand

402: Barbra Streisand

Entertainer, Singer, Actress, and Filmmaker

Born: 24 April 1942, Brooklyn, New York, United States of America

Original Name: Barbara Joan Streisand

Her career has spanned six decades.

According to her website’s biography, Barbra is the only artist ever to receive an Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Directors Guild of America Award, Golden Globe, National Medal of Arts Award, Peabody Awards and France’s Légion d’Honneur as well as the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

She is also the first female film director to win the Kennedy Center Honors.

Barbra was even awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.

If that all isn’t impressive enough, Barbra is also the only artist to ever achieve a number one album on the Billboard Charts for six consecutive decades. She even holds the record for the longest span of number one albums in history at over fifty-two years.

And in 1983, Barbra became the first woman to direct, star in, write, and produce a major motion picture: Yentl.

Point is, you should know who she is, and she’s done many many many firsts in her career.

Oh, and she clones her dogs, because you know, rich people do stuff like that.

Her personal life hasn’t all been sunshine and roses. When Barbra was fifteen months old, her father died from complications of an epileptic seizure. Her mother took Barbra and her brother to live with her parents, and made ends meet, barely, by working as a secretary in the New York Public School system. Her mother remarried in 1949, and Barbra’s half-sister was born in 1951.

Barbra has described her childhood as painful. She found no help from her mother, who thought her too unattractive to work in show business. Barbra also described her stepfather as verbally abusive.

However, she didn’t let those hardships stop her, and after graduating high school at the age of sixteen, Barbra jumped into show business, she’s never looked back.

Barbra was married for eight years and has a son with her former husband. She was married for the second time in 1998, to fellow actor James Brolin.

One of my favorite roles Barbra has ever appeared in was that of Rozalin Focker, the sassy sex therapist, in Meet the Fockers, but she has also appeared in the aforementioned Yentl as well as one of the many versions of A Star Is Born.

I've linked the trailer to Meet the Fockers in this article. You can rent the movie on YouTube.

Badges Earned:

Located In My Personal Library:

The Rough Guide to Film Musicals by David Parkinson

Sources:

https://barbrastreisand.com/biography/

https://www.biography.com/musician/barbra-streisand

398) Gertrude B. Elion

398: Gertrude Elion

Pharmacologist

Born: 23 January 1918, New York City, New York, United States of America

Died: 21 February 1999, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America

Gertrude helped create prescriptions to help treat leukemia, gout, malaria, herpes, and other diseases.

Deciding to enter the field of pharmacology occurred to Gertrude after watching her grandfather die from stomach cancer and her fiancé from an inflammation of the lining of the heart.

She graduated with a degree in chemistry but had her hopes dashed for higher learning when fifteen institutions denied her application for financial aid to attend graduate school. With no other option in sight, Gertrude applied for secretarial school instead. When reflecting on this period of her life, Gertrude reportedly said, “I hadn’t been aware that any doors were closed to me until I started knocking on them.”

Eventually, she landed a job that allowed her to save money for school. Gertrude would graduate with a master’s degree in 1941, the only woman in her chemistry classes. However, she wouldn’t find a job until 1944, when she was hired by Johnson and Johnson as a research assistant. Gertrude was never able to complete schooling on her own to earn a PhD, but she didn’t need to. Her research spoke for itself, and in time, both George Washington and Brown University would award her honorary doctoral degrees.

Gertrude published 225 papers on her various findings throughout her career.

She is one of the few female recipients of the Garvan Medal (which she was awarded in 1968) and she shares the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with her coworkers in 1988. The prize citation reads: "for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment."

Gertrude never married but was close with her brother and his children.

To learn more about her incredible work, check out the SciShow Video on her to the left.

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Located In My Personal Library:

Women in Science by Rachel Ignotofsky

Sources:

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/women-scientists/gertrude-elion.html

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1988/elion/biographical/
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/107577873/gertrude-belle-elion

374) Edith M Flanigen

Courtesy of National Science and Technology Medals

374: Edith M. Flanigen

Chemist Who Invented Molecular Sieve Zeolites

Born: 28 January 1929, Buffalo, New York, United States of America

Zeolites are used in everything from converting crude oil into gasoline and producing oxygen for portable medical oxygen units to cleaning up nuclear waste and even in laundry detergents.

Edith started her chemistry career in the early 1950’s working at Union Carbide.

She holds over 100 patents.

Edith earned her bachelor’s degree from Syracuse in 1952.

In 1973 she became the first Corporate Research Fellow at Union Carbide and in 1982 a Senior Research Fellow.

She is the first woman to receive the Perkin Medal and was the recipient of the 2004 Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award.

Sources:

https://lemelson.mit.edu/winners/edith-flanigen-0

https://www.honeywell.com/en-us/newsroom/news/2019/03/this-chemist-has-109-patents

368) Emily Warren Roebling

"The name of Emily Warren Roebling will...be inseparably associated with all that is admirable in human nature and all that is wonderful in the constructive world of art" -Abram Hewitt

(On the Bridge itself):

"An everlasting monument to the self-sacrificing devotion of a woman and of her capacity for that higher education from which she has been too long disbarred," -Abram Hewitt

368: Emily Warren Roebling

Engineer Known For Her Contributions in Completing the Brooklyn Bridge

Born: 23 September 1843, Cold Spring, New York, United States of America

Died: 28 February 1903, Trenton, New Jersey, United States of America

Emily was well educated and looked after by her older, and favorite, brother, General Kemble Warren, who served in the War Between the States. While visiting him one day, Emily was introduced to Washington Roebling, the man who become her husband a year later.

Soon after the wedding, Emily and Washington went to Europe after Emily’s father-in-law requested they travel abroad to study caissons disease, better known as “the bends”. While overseas, Emily would give birth to their only child, a son named John. Emily’s father-in-law had sent them on this mission because he was beginning the monumental task that would eventually formulate in the Brooklyn Bridge.

Emily’s father-in-law died in 1869 of tetanus, and Washington was named Chief Engineer in his father’s place. Three years after taking over, Washington became ill with the bends and would remain bedridden for the remainder of the project—launching Emily into history. Though Washington retained the title of Chief Engineer, Emily took over the majority of the tasks involved, working as a liaison between her husband and the men working onsite.

She was the first person to cross the bridge upon its opening in 1883.

Emily also earned her law degree in 1899; spending the last years of her life as a society figure. She attended functions for the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Huguenot Society, and other groups. Emily was even present for the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II in Russia and was presented to Queen Victoria in England in 1896.

Her construction pursuits also continued after the bridge was finished. Emily oversaw the building of the Roebling Mansion in Trenton, New Jersey, and the soldier’s camp built in Long Island for soldiers returning from the Spanish American War. While there, Emily also worked as a nurse.

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Located In My Personal Library:

Bygone Badass Broads by Mackenzi Lee

The Who, the What, and the When: 65 Artists Illustrate the Secret Sidekicks of History by Jenny Volvovski, Julia Rothman, and Matt LaMothe

Sources:

http://roeblingmuseum.org/ourstory/emily-warren-roebling/

https://www.asce.org/templates/person-bio-detail.aspx?id=11203

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/9190747/emily-roebling

359) Patricia Bath

359: Patricia Bath

Ophthalmologist & Laser Scientist

Born: 4 November 1942, New York City, New York, United States of America

Died: 30 May 2019, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Patricia invented a new way of doing cataract surgery (called laserphaco).

She was the first female ophthalmologist to be appointed to the faculty at the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine’s Jules Stein Eye Institute.

She was also the first woman to chair an ophthalmology residency program in the United States, and the first African American Female Scientist to earn a medical patent in the United States.

In 1976, Patricia helped found the nonprofit organization American Institute For the Prevention of Blindness.

Two months before her death, she testified before the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee focusing on women inventors and “the Future of American Innovation” (Per the New York Times linked below).

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Located In My Personal Library:

Women in Science by Rachel Ignatofsky

Sources:

https://cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/physicians/biography_26.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/obituaries/dr-patricia-bath-dead.html

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/199790271/patricia-era-bath

355) Esther Lederberg-Simon

355: Esther Lederberg-Simon

Microbiologist and Pioneer in the Field of Bacterial Genetics

Born: 18 December 1922, Bronx, New York, United States of America

Died: 11 November 2006, Stanford, California, United States of America

Growing up, Esther was especially close to her grandfather. After unsuccessfully attempting to teach her male cousins Hebrew, Esther asked him to teach her instead; something of a groundbreaking moment for the time for an Orthodox Jewish family. Esther learned the language quickly and began to do all the Hebrew readings for the family Passover Seders.

She completed her PhD in 1950 after many years of financial struggles. While working on her master’s degree, Esther recalled sometimes having so little money she would eat the frogs’ legs leftover from laboratory dissections!

Despite working for Stanford University for over fifteen years, in 1974 she was demoted from “Senior Scientist” to “Adjunct Professor” and refused to grant her tenure. This was just one example of the struggle Esther faced as a woman in the field of Biology at the time.

Despite the hardships, Esther discovered the lambda phage (a virus used to study gene regulation and genetic recombination) and invented the replica plating technique, both of which were important steps towards the advancement of the field of microbiology as a whole.

Esther’s first husband earned the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1958 with two other men (and yes, she worked on the project with them but was not included). They remained married for twenty years before divorcing.

She remarried at the age of seventy and was survived by her brother and second husband. Her second husband, Simon, spent many years after Esther’s death trying to spread the word about her and her incredible accomplishments.

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Sources:

https://www.whatisbiotechnology.org/index.php/people/summary/Lederberg_Esther

https://time.com/longform/esther-lederberg/

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/obituaries/08lederberg.html

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/199977201/esther-miriam-lederberg_simon

354) Rosalyn Yalow

354: Rosalyn Yalow

Medical Physicist and Biochemist

Born: 19 July 1921, Bronx, New York, United States of America

Died: 30 May 2011, Bronx, New York, United States of America

Rosalyn was rejected from several prominent universities’ graduate programs because she was Jewish and a woman (including Perdue).

She was the only woman to hold a teaching position at the University of Illinois’ College of Engineering—receiving her PhD there in 1945 (she was one of four hundred faculty members!). She credited her entrance into graduate school with the World War II draft taking men away to serve, opening up a place for her.

Rosalyn discovered a technique for measuring body chemicals (initially insulin) in extremely small quantities; leading her to receive the Nobel Prize for her work in Type Two Diabetes and Insulin studies. She was the second woman to receive a Nobel Prize in Medicine, and the first to be born and educated in the United States.

In her personal life, she was married with two children. After each birth, she returned to the lab after a week’s rest and continued to do her research while nursing her children at work. She was home every lunch and every dinner to prepare kosher meals for the children, even if it meant returning to the lab after dinner to continue her work.

Rosalyn never fully retired; after a fall stopped her from being able to work in the lab (she was eighty-three by then) she spent the last six years of her life answering mail and giving brief interviews.

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Located In My Personal Library:

Women in Science by Rachel Ignotofsky

Sources:

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1977/yalow/biographical/

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/women-scientists/rosalyn-sussman-yalow.html

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/yalow-rosalyn

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70724269/rosalyn-yalow

352) Dr. Jane C Wright, M.D.

352: Jane C Wright

Oncologist, Researcher, and Surgeon Noted For Her Pioneering Work in Chemotherapy

Born: 30 November 1919, Manhattan, New York, United States of America

Died: 19 February 2013, Guttenberg, New Jersey, United States of America

Jane’s father was one of the first African American men to graduate from Harvard Medical college, setting the bar high for his daughter. Jane graduated with a degree of her own in 1945 from the New York Medical College before she went on to intern for nine months at Bellevue.

She worked alongside her father for many years until he died in 1952. Jane was then appointed Head of the Cancer Research Foundation at Harlem Hospital in his place.

In 1964, President Lyndon B Johnson appointed her to the President’s Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer, and Stroke. Thanks to her work there, a national network was established with treatment centers for all three types of diseases.

By 1967 she was the highest ranked African American woman in a US Medical Institution when she became Professor of Surgery, Head of the Cancer Chemotherapy Department, and Associate Dean at New York Medical College.

In 1971, Jane became the first woman to be selected President of the New York Cancer Society.

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Sources:

https://cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/physicians/biography_336.html

https://www.aacr.org/Research/Awards/Pages/jane-cooke-wright.aspx

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/126763230/jane-cooke-wright

350) Grace Bedell Billings

Courtesy of the Kansas Historical Society

350: Grace Greenwood Bedell Billings

Wrote President Lincoln as a Child in a Now Famous Letter

Born: 4 November 1848, Westfield, New York, United States of America

Died: 2 November 1936, Delphos, Kansas, United States of America

In it, Grace told him to grow whiskers because his face was so thin. In her letter, Grace said she would urge all her brothers to vote for him if he did so.

While the letter is adorable (she was eleven when she wrote it) Lincoln had already started to grow his beard by the time he received the letter (according to some sources, others say that when he wrote her back he made no promises but started to grow it a month later).

While on his way to be inaugurated in DC after the election, President Lincoln’s train stopped in her hometown and he was able to meet Grace.

She later married and had a son, dying two days prior to her eighty-sixth birthday.

A monument to her now stands in Delphos, Kansas, and another in Westfield, New York depicts her and Lincoln both.

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Located In My Personal Library:

Dead Presidents by Brady Carlson

Uppity Women Speak Their Minds by Vicki Leon

Sources:

https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/grace-bedell/17779

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/lookingforlincoln/analyzing-the-evidence-grace-bedell-analysis-complete/

http://www.abelincolnhistory.com/letters/grace-bedell.htm

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/9761299/grace-billings