The history of women in engineering predates the development of the profession of engineering. Before engineering was recognised as a formal profession, women with engineering skills often sought recognition as inventors. During the Islamic Golden Period from the 8th century until the 15th century there were many Muslim women who were inventors and engineers, such as the 10th-century astrolabe maker Al-ʻIjliyyah.Salim Al-Hassani. "Women's Contribution to Classical Islamic Civilisation: Science, Medicine and Politics". Retrieved January 5, 2019.
In the 19th century, women who performed engineering work often had academic training in mathematics or science, although many of them were still not eligible to graduate with a degree in engineering, such as Ada Lovelace or Hertha Marks Ayrton. Rita de Morais Sarmento was one of the first women in Europe to be certified with an academic degree in engineering in 1896. In the United States at the University of California, Berkeley, Elizabeth Bragg (1876) and Julia Morgan (1894) already had received their bachelor's degree in that field.
In the early years of the 20th century, a few women were admitted to engineering training. Alice Perry (1906), Cécile Butticaz (1907), Elisa Leonida Zamfirescu (1912) and Nina Cameron Graham (1912) were some of the first European women to graduate with a degree in engineering. The entry of the United States into World War II created a serious shortage of engineering talent in America as men were drafted into the armed forces. The GE on-the-job engineering training for women with degrees in mathematics and physics, and the Curtiss-Wright Engineering Program had "Curtiss-Wright Cadettes" ("Engineering Cadettes", e.g., Rosella Fenton). The company partnered with Cornell, Penn State, Purdue, the University of Minnesota, the University of Texas, RPI, and Iowa State University to create an engineering curriculum that eventually enrolled over 600 women. The course lasted ten months and focused primarily on aircraft design and production.Bix, Amy Sue, "'Engineeresses' Invade Campus: Four decades of debate over technical coeducation." IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, Vol. 19 Nr. 1 (Spring 2000), 21.
Kathleen McNulty, Betty Holberton, Marlyn Wescoff, Ruth Lichterman, Betty Jean Jennings and Fran Bilas were the first six programmers of the ENIAC. Georgia Tech began to admit women engineering students in 1952. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) had graduated its first female student, Ellen Swallow Richards (1842–1911), in 1873. The École Polytechnique in Paris first began to admit women students in 1972. The number of BA/BS degrees in engineering awarded to women in the U.S. increased by 45 percent between 1980 and 1994. However, from 1984 to 1994, the number of women graduating with a BA or BS degree in computer science decreased by 23 percent.
The Afghan Girls Robotics Team made history in 2017, following their love of engineering and robotics to take part in the FIRST Global Challenge in Washington, DC. Members of the team, aged 12 to 18, overcame war and other hardships in the quest for national pride and as a symbol of a more Progressive Afghanistan. But the overthrowing of the Afghanistan government by the Taliban in August 2021 left the girls on the team fearful for their safety. On 21 August 2021 it was reported that nine Afghan girl robotics team members were safe in Qatar, having made it out of Kabul. The girls on the team were offered scholarships at 'incredible universities' to pursue their careers in robotics and engineering.
Terminology Although the terms engineer and engineering date from the Middle Ages, they acquired their current meaning and usage only recently in the nineteenth century. Briefly, an engineer is one who uses the principles of engineering – namely acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge – in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes. Some of the major branches of the engineering profession include civil engineering, military engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, aerospace engineering, computer engineering, and biomedical engineering.
Inventors Before engineering was recognised as a formal profession, women with engineering skills often sought recognition as inventors. Tabitha Babbit (1784–1853?) was an American toolmaker who invented the first circular saw. Sarah Guppy (1770–1852) was an Englishwoman who patented a design for bridge foundations. Naval engineer Henrietta Vansittart (1833–1883) held patents across the world for the Lowe Vansittart propeller and was the first woman to write and illustrate her own diagrams and drawings for a scientific article presented at Association of Foreman Engineers and Draughtsmen. Mary Dixon Kies (1752–1837) was the first American woman to receive a patent for her method of weaving straw in 1809.Stanley, Autumn, Mothers and Daughters of Invention: Notes for a Revised History of Invention (Metuchen, NJ and London: Scarecrow Press, 1993).
19th century: entry into technical professions
With the coming of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, new technology-based occupations opened up for both men and women. Sarah Bagley (1806–?) is remembered for her efforts to improve working conditions for women mill workers in Lowell, Massachusetts in the 1830s and 1840s, and for being one of the earliest women to work as a telegraph operator. Mathilde Fibiger (1830–1872), a Danish novelist and advocate of women's rights, became a telegraph operator for the Danish State Telegraph system in the 1860s.
Engineering began to be taught as a formal academic discipline in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The École Polytechnique in France was established in 1794 to teach military and civil engineering; West Point Military Academy in the United States established a program modelled after the École Polytechnique in 1819. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) began to teach civil engineering in 1828. However, none of these institutions admitted women as students at the time of their founding.
In the 19th century, women who performed engineering work often had academic training in mathematics or science. Ada Lovelace (1815–1852), Lord Byron's daughter, was privately schooled in mathematics before beginning the collaboration with Charles Babbage on his analytical engine. Hertha Marks Ayrton (1854–1923), a British engineer and inventor who helped develop electric arc lighting, studied mathematics at Cambridge in 1880, but was denied a degree, as women were only granted certificates of completion at the time. Consequently, she moved to the University of London, which granted her a bachelor of Science degree in 1881. Mary Engle Pennington (1872–1952), an American chemist and refrigeration engineer, completed the requirements for a BS degree in chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania in 1892, but was given a certificate of proficiency instead.
Elizabeth Bragg and Julia Morgan became the first women to receive a bachelor's degree in engineering, by the University of California, Berkeley, in civil engineering (1876) and mechanical engineering (1894). Bertha Lamme graduated from Ohio State University in mechanical engineering in 1894.
In 1882 Mary Hegeler Carus was the first woman to graduate in engineering from the University of Michigan. She went on to study at the Bergakademie Freiberg from 1885 to 1886, the first woman to be legally enrolled. While studying at Freiberg, Hegeler was segregated to her own private laboratory due to the administration's concern that she would distract male students. Although her academic performance was excellent, she was not allowed to officially graduate because she was a woman. She went on to run the family business, Matthiessen-Hegeler Zinc Company in La Salle, at one time the largest producer of zinc in the US.
Rita de Morais Sarmento (1872–1931) was the first woman to earn an engineering degree in Europe. She enrolled at the Academia Politécnica do Porto to study civil engineering of public works, which she concluded with various distinctions in 1894. Two years later, she was granted with the "Civil Engineering certificate of capability" to practise as a professional engineer, and although she never did, she was the first formally and fully recognised European woman engineer.
Lydia Weld was the first woman to graduate in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, starting her studies in 1898 and going on to work as a draughtsman in the engineering division of Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company. She later became the second woman member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Other women in engineering in the same time period include three Danish women: Agnes Klingberg, Betzy Meyer and Julie Arenholt, who studied from 1897 to 1901 at the Polyteknisk Læreanstalt, today known as the Danmarks Tekniske Universitet.
Women without formal engineering degrees were also integral to great 19th century civil engineering feats. Emily Warren Roebling is recognised as managing the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, and was the first person to cross the bridge at its opening ceremony in 1883. Roebling's husband, Washington, worked as the chief engineer for the Brooklyn Bridge project until he fell ill of decompression sickness. Emily Warren Roebling then assumed her husband's duties at the project site, and taught herself about material properties, cable construction, calculating catenary curves and other subjects.
20th century: entry into engineering programs
In the early years of the twentieth century, a small number of women had begun to be admitted to engineering training courses.
1900s On 27 July 1904, Maria Elisabeth Bes graduated in chemical engineering from the Polytechische School te Delft, becoming the first female graduate engineer in the Netherlands.
In 1906, Anna Boyksen became the first female engineering student at the Technische Hochschule München in Germany.
In 1905, Nora Stanton Blatch Barney (1883–1971), daughter of Harriot Stanton Blatch and granddaughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was the first woman to earn a degree in civil engineering from Cornell University. In the same year, she was accepted as a junior member of the American Society of Civil Engineers; however, twelve years later, after having worked as an engineer, architect, and engineering inspector, her request for an upgrade to associate membership was denied.
Olive Dennis (1885–1957), who became the second woman to graduate from Cornell with a civil engineering degree in 1920, was initially hired by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as a draftsman; she later became the first person to claim the title of Service Engineer when this title was created.
In 1907, Elin Jacobsson and Anna Sandstedt graduated from the Technical School in Stockholm as civil engineers, the first women to do so. They had to undertake the mandatory bricklaying part of the course in the "utmost secrecy" in the basement.
Cleone Benest passed the City and Guilds of London Institute's motor-engineering examination, the Royal Automobile Club's mechanical test in 1908 and took the Portsmouth Municipal College examination for heat engines in 1910. Using the professional name of C. Griff, she joined several engineering organisations and established a consultancy business in Mayfair.
Alice Perry was one of the first formally recognised women engineers in Europe, graduated with a degree in engineering in 1908 from Queen's College, Galway.
In 1908, Emma Strada was the first woman engineering graduate in Italy, coming third out of 62 in her class.