 After graduating , Young became an industrial research chemist , working in the lacquer industry at Van Schaack Brothers Chemical Works in Chicago . In 1930 , she became an assistant professor of chemistry at the Texas State College for Women , where she taught nutrition and biochemistry . In 1934 , she resigned to take up an offer from Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago , but when she arrived the director found out that she was a woman , and refused to hire her . Jobs were hard to find during the Great Depression , and she was a consultant with no regular employment until 1938 , when she took a position with Pure Oil . There she worked with Cary R. Wagner , Jr . , on a book on petroleum refining . The project went on for six years , but it was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II , and the book was never published . 
