Marilyn Morgan, Author of Trailblazing Black Women of Washington State
Seattle Branch AAUW November 16, 2022
Historian and writer Marilyn Morgan shared stories of some of the 29 women featured in her fourth book, Trailblazing Black Women of Washington State, at our November 12, 2022, virtual meeting.
Over 35 guests, including a group of members from the Edmonds-SnoKing branch, heard about Morgan’s development as a writer, her previous books, and her intent to shine a light on the state’s Black women who were firsts in their fields but whose contributions have been overlooked or erased.
One poignant example is Alice Augusta Ball, a brilliant 23-year-old chemist who devised a water-soluble method of delivering a drug that, for the first time in human history, made treating leprosy possible. The Ball method was used around the world until new drugs were developed during the 1940s. After Ball died at 24 in 1916, the president of the university where she did her work found it, published it, and took credit for it. Not until 2000 did the university recognize her work posthumously.
Since Morgan came to Seattle to work at Boeing, it’s not surprising she focused on the Black Rosies, young Black women who came to Seattle from the South for war work there. In their oral histories, they described their supervisors as protective when others challenged them, although the company had resisted hiring Black workers until ordered to do so.
Trailblazing Black Women of Washington State is available through the Seattle Public Library and wherever books are sold.
