Women in Engineering: Honoring the Past, Shaping the Future
Empowering Women in Engineering
Throughout the week, the McGill offices have been celebrating women in engineering. On Monday, the Hickory office spent time in community, chatting and eating sweet treats. On Tuesday evening, the Asheville office gathered locally to play mini golf. And today, we want to draw attention to some of the women who have been recognized as educators, entrepreneurs, artists, legends, and, above all else, exceptional engineers.
A Look into the Past
When many men were sent overseas to fight during World War I, women were asked to fill their jobs stateside. This means women were working in shipyards to make ship repairs; they were working in factories to produce ammunition, airplane parts, and other materials for war; there were women in engineering. The women of the time showed their ability to step into roles that had previously been determined as “for men,” and when the war ended and the men wanted to return to their jobs, the women pushed back.
The formation of the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) in 1919 was key for supporting women who wanted to stay in the field. The founding members campaigned for the women who held engineering and technical roles during World War I to keep their jobs, and they started promoting engineering as a rewarding and attainable field for women to pursue.
Many women of the past have paved the way for women engineers of the present and future, and below we briefly tell the stories of two. To see some of the other notable women engineers, check out this resource and this resource.
Evelyn Vernick Fowler
Evelyn started her career at the Pratt Institute of Art. She graduated in 1942, and during World War II, she used her artistic skills to work as a draftsperson to fill in for the men who were fighting overseas.
While working as a draftsperson, she met Alexander Fowler, who was an electrical engineer. The pair married, and Alexander encouraged Evelyn to pursue an engineering career of her own. Evelyn applied to Columbia University and Brooklyn Polytechnic, both of which rejected her due to gender. She ended up returning to the Pratt Institute of Art, where she earned a degree in chemical engineering as she was expecting her second child.
Evelyn and Alexander went on to start their own company, the American Actuator Corporation, and they raised four children (three boys and one girl). Each son went on to pursue engineering, and the daughter became an architect. As a founding member of Society of Women Engineers (SWE), Evelyn was featured as an “engineer you should know.”
SWE also interviewed Evelyn and Alexander’s children about growing up with the engineering parents, and the children were proud of their upbringing because they learned to always treat women as intellectual equals and understand that women are equally capable of pursuing and excelling in any profession. You can read more about Evelyn here.
Beatrice Hicks
Beatrice went on to become the first president of SWE, but before that, she fell in love with engineering as a young girl on a trip to New York City with her dad. She was impressed by the City’s buildings and bridges, and she wanted to learn more. Beatrice went on to earn a BS in Chemical Engineering at the Newark College of Engineering and an MS in Physics at Stevens Institute of Technology.
From there, Beatrice climbed the ranks of her dad’s firm, Newark Controls, Inc., until she became the president in 1955. Not only was Beatrice a successful engineer, but she was also devoted to and successful at empowering other women engineers. SWE blossomed under her leadership, and she went on to travel across the US to encourage other women to pursue engineering.
Beatrice left a lasting impression on the engineering field, and SWE is still an empowering, respected organization. You can read more about Beatrice here.
The Future of Women in Engineering
According to the Pew Research Center, it is more likely for women to experience workplace discrimination than it is for men to have that experience. This is what Beatrice, Evelyn, and the other women in engineering were working to improve, and we are still working on those improvements today. We want there to be more women in engineering.
At McGill, we are proud to say that we have women working in nearly all of our practice areas–including water / wastewater, water resources, mechanical, and civil. Hopefully we will soon be able to say there are women working in all of our practice areas.
If you are a woman looking to pursue an engineering career but feel nervous about entering a male-dominated workforce, we hope you find inspiration in the stories of the women above. Also, we hope you will reach out to a member of our team to learn more about McGill to see if we are a company where you feel you can grow.
