On the passing of the person
to thank for wrinkle-free fabric
Last month the New York Times marked the passing, at age 97, of a scientist most people haven’t heard of, yet whose groundbreaking work has spared a lot of people a lot of ironing since the early 1960s.
We think it’s only fitting here at Prestige Cleaners to take a moment to remember and honor the late Dr. Ruth Benerito.
Among her many accomplishments, Dr. Benerito is largely credited with figuring out how to produce wrinkle-free cotton, or, as the Times more poetically put it, in solving the “… problem of persuading cotton, constitutionally crease-prone, to lie down and behave.” Her obituary in the Times hailed the achievement as “… one of the most significant technological developments of the 20th century.”
“Remarkable” falls short when it comes to describing Dr. Benerito’s life and career. Born in New Orleans in 1916, she entered college at 15, earned a PhD in chemistry from the University of Chicago, and worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture until her “retirement.”
We put “retirement” in quotes because, following that, she taught at the University of New Orleans right up to age 81.
At age 95, Dr. Benerito was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. By then had she racked up more than 50 patents, only some of which were in cotton chemistry.
There was a good deal more to the late Dr. Ruth Benerito than that. We recommend the New York Times tribute to this remarkably accomplished yet modest scientist, which you can read by clicking here.
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