The Women in Chemistry

Oral History Project
 

 

Brown, Jeannette E.  (Interview by Laura Sweeney, WISE Archives)

Interview transcript portion:
 

LS:    So then you were applying for jobs.

JB:     Okay.  There, there I was, got to be a little organized.   I had been an American Chemical Society member because as soon as you graduate as an undergraduate you can become an ACS member.  So I looked in Chemical and Engineering News.  They had an employment issue.  I wasn't going to be a doctor.  I was going to work for a pharmaceutical company.

I eliminated a whole bunch of chemical companies right then and there.  And I took a list of the, all of the pharmaceutical companies that there were.  And I wrote letters to them asking, you know, for a job, job interview.  And three of them responded.  Yes.  So I went to Ciba.  Now Ciba was in Summit, New Jersey.  I was the second African American that they hired.  The other person, Ben Lambert, was the first.  He was an African American.  We were both--junior chemist is what the title is.  Junior chemist.  At the time Ciba had one senior person and two junior people working for them.  And so I was working there.  And it was, it was really nice. 

 

Tanya Zanish-Belcher, Curator-Archives of Women in Science and Engineering
Special Collections Department, Iowa State University Library
tzanish@iastate.edu