WASHINGTON, Feb. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15: TENLEY ALBRIGHT

Profile America — Wednesday, February 15th.  On this day in 1953, 17-year-old Tenley Albright became the first American to win the Women's World Figure Skating Championship, having overcome polio as a child.  She repeated the championship two years later.  She also won five U.S. championships in a row, and in 1956, became the first U.S. woman to win a figure skating gold medal in the Olympics.  She ended her competitive skating with that victory and did not turn professional.  Instead, Albright entered Harvard Medical School and went on to a career as a respected surgeon in Boston.  Now, there are 872,000 physicians and surgeons in the U.S., about a third of them women.  You can find these and more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau, online at www.census.gov.

Sources:  Kane's Famous First Facts, 7433
NIH, Changing the Face of Medicine
Statistical Abstract of the United States 2012, t. 616

Profile America is produced by the Public Information Office of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on a monthly CD or on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button). 

SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau

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