Women in the History of Engineering and Manufacturing

What do Israel's first computer, Wi-Fi, the first US crewed spaceflight, and the Brooklyn Bridge have in common? Women in engineering helped make all of them possible. We often hear that engineering needs to attract more women.

Organizations such as IEEE WIE (Women in Engineering), WES (Women's Engineering Society), and SWE (Society of Women Engineers) now promote their participation, but women have contributed to major technical developments for generations. Read on to learn how early women engineers paved the way for today's professionals.

Beatrice Shilling

(March 1909 – November 1990)

Shilling was an aeronautical engineer during World War II. Her interest in mechanical engineering began early: she bought and tinkered with her first motorcycle at 14. In 1934 she earned a master's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Manchester.

She is best known for “Miss Shilling's orifice,” a simple modification to Merlin engines used in Spitfire and Hurricane fighters. During a dive, excess fuel could flood and stall the engine, allowing German planes to outmaneuver British aircraft. Shilling developed a simple device with an opening that restricted fuel flow and helped British pilots regain an advantage.

World War II Spitfire

Outside aviation, Shilling raced motorcycles. She beat professional riders such as Noel Pope and received a Gold Star for reaching 106 mph (171 km/h) on a Norton M30 at Brooklands. Between 1959 and 1962, she raced an Austin-Healey Sebring Sprite with her husband.

Emily Roebling

(September 23, 1843 – February 28, 1903)

Left: Carolus-Duran [Public domain]. Right: Brooklyn Bridge under construction

Roebling is recognized as the chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge. When her husband Washington Roebling, the original project leader, became too ill with caisson disease (decompression sickness) to continue, she assumed responsibility for managing the project.

She did more than relay his instructions: she studied construction needs and reviewed engineering issues, materials, stress analysis, construction work, and calculations. When the bridge opened in 1883, she was the first person to cross it.

[The Brooklyn Bridge] is an enduring monument to a woman's selfless devotion and her capacity for the higher education so long denied to her. — Abram Stevens Hewitt.

Thelma Estrin

(February 21, 1924 – February 15, 2014)

Estrin was among the first to apply computer technology in healthcare. She initially wanted to become an accountant because of her natural aptitude for

mathematics, but with the outbreak of World War II she moved into engineering and eventually earned a PhD in 1951.

While her husband worked at the University of California, Estrin could not join him because she was a woman, so she taught drafting at a junior college. In 1954 the couple moved to Israel to build WEIZAC (Weizmann Automatic Computer), Israel's first computer and one of the earliest large-scale stored-program electronic computers.

After returning to the US, she worked at the Brain Research Institute at UCLA, directing the Data Processing Laboratory from 1970 to 1980. During that time, she developed the first system for converting electroencephalography data (EEG, a way to monitor the brain's electrical activity) into digital signals.

In 1980, UCLA finally recognized her work by appointing her a professor in the Computer Science Department of its School of Engineering and Applied Science.

a’Asor Le’Israel. Masada Publishing, Jerusalem, 1958 [Public domain]

Cleone Benest

(June 1880 – December 1963)

Cleone Benest. Used under fair use

Benest was among the first women to pass mechanical examinations at the City and Guilds of London Institute, the Royal Automobile Club, and Portsmouth Municipal College. She was also the first woman to drive a bus.

She was passionate about cars and owned a 1906 12-horsepower Lanchester and a 12-horsepower Fiat, maintaining both in her own workshop. She also competed in motor races in 1911.

She began her career running her own electrical and mechanical engineering consultancy, which repaired machinery and offered courses in engine mechanics. At the start of World War I, she moved into inspecting aircraft engines.

In 1922 she founded a Stainless Steel and Non-Rusting Metals company. Its directors were also women, unheard of at the time. She also became chair of the Women's Electrical Association.

It says much about that era that, despite her achievements, she often worked under the pseudonym C. Griff.

Hedy Lamarr

(November 1914 – January 2000)

Perhaps the most unusual woman on this list is Hedy Lamarr (born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler). She began as an actress, became a Hollywood star, and was known for a controversial scene in Gustav Machatý's film Ecstasy. Yet she also invented a technology underlying Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, demonstrating that she was much more than a familiar face.

Even more remarkably, she had no formal engineering training and taught herself. During World War II, she worked with her friend, composer George Antheil. Together they developed a system that was difficult to track or jam, unlike the radio-controlled torpedoes of the time. They used a frequency-hopping signal. The pair patented it in 1942, although the US Navy did not adopt the technology until 1962. Today it is used in many wireless devices.

Katherine Johnson

(August 1918–)

Women at NASA Langley. From left: Christine Darden, Katherine Johnson (seated), Janet Stephens, Katherine Smith, and Sharon Stack. NASA [Public domain]

Johnson was a mathematician who helped calculate early US crewed spaceflights. She worked at NASA for 35 years and contributed calculations to many missions, including John Glenn's flight as the first American to orbit Earth and missions to Mars.

In 1938, she became the first African American woman and one of three African American students to attend West Virginia University. In 1952 she joined NACA (later NASA), working in a team of women often called “human computers” or “computers in skirts.” She and another female colleague were later transferred “temporarily” to an all-male research group. She never returned to her original women's team.

The film Hidden Figures is based on her life and those of two other African American women working at NASA: Dorothy Vaughan, the first African American woman to supervise a team at the center, and Mary Jackson, NASA's first African American female engineer.

Stephanie Kwolek

(July 1923 – June 2014)

Chemist and inventor Stephanie Kwolek. Science History Institute [CC BY-SA 3.0]

Kwolek is best known for inventing Kevlar, which has helped save thousands of lives through bullet-resistant vests. She was among the first female research chemists and one of the first American chemists of Polish descent.

Kwolek earned her bachelor's degree in chemistry from Carnegie Mellon's Margaret Morrison College in 1946. She joined DuPont in Buffalo, New York, in 1946 after World War II. It was while working there that she invented Kevlar.

Source: blog.bricsys.com/women-in-engineering-history