Who was Yvonne Y. Clark?
Yvonne Y. Clark, affectionately known as Y.Y. Clark, was a pioneer for African American and women engineers. She was a woman of many firsts.
- The first woman to receive a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering at Howard University
- The first woman to earn a master's degree in Engineering Management from Vanderbilt University
- The first woman to serve as a faculty member in the College of Engineering and Technology at Tennessee State University, then to become an emeritus Professor
Yvonne Y. Clark held many honors and distinctions.
Born Georgianna Yvonne Young on April 13, 1929, in Houston, Texas to Dr. Coleman Milton Young Jr. and Hortense Houston Young, Yvonne grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. As a child, she had a love for building and fixing things, but was not allowed to take mechanical drawing classes at school because she was a girl. In high school, Yvonne took an aeronautics class and joined the school's Civil Air Patrol, where she learned to shoot and had flying lessons in a simulator. In 1945, she graduated from high school at the age of sixteen and spent the next two years studying at Girls Latin School in Boston, Massachusetts. Upon earning upper-level degrees, she found that "the engineering job market wasn’t very receptive to women, particularly women of color". The woman of many firsts refused to allow discrimination or racism to prohibit her from completing the work about which she was most passionate.
Yvonne's first job after college was in the Frankford Arsenal Gauge Lab, a U.S. Army ammunition plant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She later accepted a role with a small record label, RCA Camden, in New Jersey where she designed factory equipment. This woman of many firsts returned to the South and in 1955 married William F. Clark Jr., a biochemistry teacher, at Meharry Medical College. To their union a son and a daughter were born. In 1956, she became the first female member of the Tennessee State University Mechanical Engineering Department where she was referred to as "TSU's First Lady of Engineering". Yvonne Y. Clark chaired the department twice from 1965 until 1970 and then in 1977 and held the position for eleven years. She later retired as a professor having fifty-five years of service added to her impeccable record.
Yvonne Young Clark helped start Tennessee State's chapter of Pi Tau Sigma, a mechanical engineering society where she encouraged women to become engineers. As a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Nashville Alumnae Chapter, has named the Yvonne Y. Clark Excellence In Engineering Scholarship in her honor. On January 27, 2019, Yvonne Young Clark, surrounded by loved ones, passed away peacefully at her home in Nashville, Tennessee.