Ruth Mary Rogan Benerito (January 12, 1916 – October 5, 2013) was an American physical chemist and inventor known for her huge impact work related to the textile industry, notably including the development of wash-and-wear cotton fabrics using a technique called cross-linking.

[1] Her father, John Edward Rogan, was a civil engineer and railroad official and was described by his daughter as a pioneer in women's liberation movement.

My very personal success was built from the help and sacrifices of members of my family, and professional accomplishments resulted from the efforts of early teachers and the cooperativeness of colleagues too many to enumerate.

In 1948 she received her doctorate degree from the University of Chicago, where she conducted physical chemical research under the direction of Thomas F. Young.

She left her job as an assistant professor in Newcomb College in 1953 to work at the USDA Southern Regional Research Center of the US Department of Agriculture in New Orleans, where she spent most of her career.

She invented these wash-and-wear cotton fabrics, which allow for more wrinkle-free and durable clothing, while working at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) laboratories in New Orleans in the 1950s.

[8] In the southern United States, cotton was a major agricultural product that played a crucial role in everyday life.

She clarified her role in a 2004 USDA interview by stating, "I don't l ike it to be said that I invented wash-wear because there were any number of people worked on it and the various processes by which you give cotton those properties.

She proposed that one side effect of her crosslinking process was the strengthening of the hydrogen bonds, which made the material resistant to wrinkling.

[13][14] Besides her contribution to the textile industry, during the Korean War, Benerito developed a way to give fat intravenously to patients who were too sick to eat—a method used to feed seriously wounded soldiers.

The goal was to find a way to feed these fats directly into the patient's veins to provide them high-calorie nutrition for their physical activities.