[5] At the time of her appointment as a professor, Blade was "the only woman on the Cooper Union engineering faculty (where she initially taught drawing, mathematics and design) and one of few women on any engineering faculty in the United States".

[6] Her obituary stated that she was the first woman professor of mechanical/electrical engineering in New York City.

[8] In 1978, Blade was featured in Chair: The current state of the art, with the who, the why, and the what of it by Peter Bradford and Barbara Prete with a chapter titled "Physical Forces and Damages, Your Sitting Behavior, Move.

[6] Professor Mary Plumb Blade died in Vancouver General Hospital on 4 December 1994, having suffered from Alzheimer's disease in her final years.

She was survived by three siblings and "22 grand and great-grand nieces and nephews and her feline companion, Miss America of Vancouver"[7]