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  3. The Spider Lady

AUDIOBOOK

The Spider Lady

Nan Songer And Her Arachnid World War Ii Army

Penny Parker Klostermann
(0)
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Duration
20m
Year
2025
Language
English
Publisher
Recorded Books, Inc.

About

Perfect for kids who are fascinated by insects and American history, here is the story of Nan Songer, a

little-known hero of World War II, who collected and bred spiders in her home and found new ways to use

their silk to help the United States win the war.Venomous spiders, delicate silk, and science experiments filled

Nan Songer's days and nights-her home in California overflowed with many-legged critters. With inspiration

from a friend, Nan began to study how spider silk could be harvested. The finely woven material spiders used

to create webs was much stronger than it looked, and Nan was eager to unlock its potential and hopefully

help her country at the same time. At the height of WWII, she studied different spiders before landing on the

poisonous black widow as the perfect spider to experiment with. Their strong silk could be used for crosshairs

on rifles, which Nan used to fill massive orders for the US military. Despite the danger posed by black widows,

Nan wasn't deterred-she wanted to play her part. Using a device she built for extracting silk, Nan humanely

used it on the deadly spiders to get both extra fine and super heavy silk.

Related Subjects

  • Insects, Spiders, etc.
  • Animals
  • Juvenile Nonfiction
  • Women
  • Biography & Autobiography

Artists

Penny Parker KlostermannAuthor
Nan McNamaraReader