Once upon a time, there was a girl who would puzzle out the secrets hidden in plants and find cures for diseases.

Her name was Alice.

It was a dark, warm, and very humid night on an island in Hawaii.

Alice was up late in the lab doing research after a long day spent instructing college students.

She was trying to make sense of some of the chemicals in a compound right in front of her.

As she peered into the test tubes and swirled substances in flasks, she asked herself,

why wouldn't this thing dissolve?

Why did it stay so sticky?

How would she get what was in this plant out?

She was tired and puzzled, but wasn't about to let it go.

Alice persisted on, alone in her research. She was only 23 years old, but she had already come so far,

and she knew she couldn't give up. She was determined to discover a way to find a treatment for suffering patients. And so she kept trying. And it's a very

good thing that she did.

I'm Lindsay Murphy, your crazy Aunt Lindsay.

And this is Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, a fairy tale podcast about the rebel women who inspire us.

In this episode, we learn the story of the brilliant young chemist, Alice Ball.

Alice Augusta Ball was born in 1892. She had three siblings and lived in Seattle. Her mother was a photographer and her father did a lot of things.

He was a newspaper editor, a photographer, and a lawyer.

Growing up, Alice learned about her family's photography work,

including the work of her grandfather, James Ball Sr.,

who was an abolitionist and famous photographer and one of the first Black Americans to use a special

technique called Degera type. DeGarotype is a very early form of photography,

...