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Your Engineering Heritage
Powering
the Electrical Revolution: Women and Technology
by
Michael N. Geselowitz, Ph.D.
March is Women’s
History Month. In next month’s Hall of Fame column, we will
feature a very interesting personality; be sure to check back! It’s
not too soon to kick off Women’s History Month, however. This
month marks the birth of Edith Clarke (10 February), the first
woman to receive an electrical engineering degree from MIT (in
1919) and the first woman to be named a Fellow of an IEEE
predecessor, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (in
1948).
Did
You Know?
Ada
Lovelace was the daughter of British poet, Lord
Byron, and she worked with Charles Babbage on
his first calculating machine. The standard
programming language adopted by the Department
of Defense in the 1970's is named Ada, in her
honor. Sometimes it is shown as ADA, but it is
no acronym. |
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A quick review
of engineering and technology history might lead one to believe
that, Edith Clarke and next month’s mystery guest excepted,
technology is the dominion of men. After all, even the name Edith
Clarke does not resonate like those of such men as Faraday or
Edison — who are known by one name only. Historically, women have had limited access to education,
especially in science and engineering. For example, women were
long excluded from engineering schools, and although many men of
the era didn’t go to engineering school either, women didn’t
have the other route of learning the ropes open to them — on the job. Added to the lack of or limited access to
schools and the workplace was the general assumption that women
had no mechanical abilities, or even interest in technical fields.
Despite the odds against them, women have found ways of
making their presence in these fields known. In their roles as
workers, consumers and housewives — and later as scientists and
engineers — women have always helped shape the direction in
which technology has moved.
But where can
one turn to learn something of this story? It just so happens that
this month is also the first anniversary of the IEEE Virtual
Museum.
It is our privilege to draw your attention to one of our newest
exhibits: “Powering the Electrical
Revolution: Women and Technology.” This exhibit explores the
role of women in the growth of our modern, technologically based
society during the late 19th and the 20th
centuries — the Electric Century, if you will. Using still
images, video clips and animations, the exhibit covers several
incidents from the various eras of electrical history, including:
- The impact of
women operators in the growth of telegraphy
- The role of
housewives on the spread of electrification and the place of
women workers in early electrical factories
- The influence
of women mathematicians (beginning with Ada Lovelace in the
early 19th century) on the rise of modern
computing. Did you know that before the invention of
electronic computers, computer was a job description
and most computers during World War II were women?
- The emergence
of women engineers in the second half of the 20th
century
We hope you will
visit this and other exhibits currently on display on the IEEE
Virtual Museum at http://www.ieee.org/museum.
Michael
N. Geselowitz, Ph.D., is director of the IEEE History Center at
Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. Visit the IEEE History
Center's Web page at: www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/
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