Pearl Young

Career In 1922 Young was hired as a physicist by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and was assigned to the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory's Instrument Research Division under the direction of Henry J.E. Reid. In 1929 Reid appointed Young as Langley's Chief Technical Editor. She established an office, hired staff and formed the research reports and official documents that communicated the extraordinary technical accomplishments of Langley. Young wrote NACA's Style Manual for Engineering Authors, a reference work which had lasting influence at Langley and elsewhere at NACA. Young retired in 1961 from NASA, and taught physics for another year at Fresno State University. She then turned her full-time attentions to researching a biography of aviation pioneer Octave Chanute. Chanute is one of the most important figures in the history of aviation. In addition to his own experimentation with flight in the late 19th century, he was the "central disseminator of aeronautical developments around the world." She compiled her findings in various article and pamphlets.

Legacy A theater at NASA Langley was named for Pearl Young in 1995.

Archives of Pearl Young's papers are at the Denver Public Library, the University of Wyoming, and at the University of North Dakota.

Works . The publisher printed 255 copies, of which 250 were for sale or distributed to various libraries. The 28-page booklet contains a short biography (3 pages) with the remainder listing writings and speeches by or about Chanute. Style Manual for Engineering Authors (NACA)