Born: 12 January 1916, United States
Died: 5 October 2013
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Ruth Mary Rogan
American chemist and inventor Ruth Rogan Benerito held 55 patents and is known for her textiles work, particularly the development of wash-and-wear cotton fabrics.
Benerito finished high school at age 14 and went on to study chemistry, physics and math at Sophie Newcomb College (Tulane University’s women’s college), graduating in 1935. After attending Bryn Mawr for graduate studies, she returned to Newcomb to teach chemistry while researching advanced quantitative analysis and physical chemistry, organic chemistry, kinetics, and thermodynamics, and taking night classes to earn her master’s degree. She completed her doctorate in 1948 at the University of Chicago and later completed a postdoctoral fellowship in biophysics at Tulane University in 1972.
Benerito left her assistant professor position at Newcomb in 1953 to work with the USDA, where she would stay until retiring in 1986 (thought she continued to teach part-time at Tulane and the University of New Orleans from 1960 into her retirement).
At the USDA, Benerito worked in the Intravenous Fat Program of the OilSeed Laboratory, and was promoted to project leader in 1955. Her team developed a method to deliver fat intravenously to patients who were too sick to eat, which was used to feed wounded soldiers during the Korean War.
While at the USDA, she worked on the use of mono-basic acid chlorides in the production of cotton, inventing wash-and-wear cotton fabrics, which allow for more wrinkle-free and durable clothing, as well as stain- and flame-resistant fabrics. Her work saved countless women untold hours of domestic labor ironing clothes.
Benerito did not describe herself as the inventor of these materials, despite holding 55 patents. She said in an interview, “I don’t like it to be said that I invented wash-wear because there were any number of people worked on it and the various processes by which you give cotton those properties. No one person discovered it or is responsible for it, but I contributed to a new process of doing it.”
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