 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.
