Then in Infrastructure: The “Facile Fingers” Of Early Female Engineers
Construction view of the Brooklyn Bridge
By Kate Reggev
This month, to celebrate our #NowinInfrastructure series in partnership with Untapped New York, we’re exploring and appreciating the work of early female engineers and contributors to our infrastructure — women who helped change our cityscapes and the built environment at large with their contributions. Considered “curiosities'” to their male peers more than anything else during their education and careers, these women helped design and build bridges, office buildings, department stores, flood mitigation plans, and more. Their legacy, as one newspaper noted in 1897, "disproves old-time theories against the limimtations of her sex.”
Like the history of women in architecture, the history of women in engineering and infrastructure far predates the formal development of the profession of engineering. And while we here at Madame Architect have discussed — at length! — how architecture has long been a field dominated by our male peers, we might also want to consider that of our cousins (sisters?) over in engineering, where only 15% of engineers were women according to the US Department of Labor in 2019 (and that the statistics are particularly low for women of color in engineering), compared to 28% of architects were women in 2021.
Howard University Turns Out First Female Engineer. New Journal and Guide. July 6 1946.
This lack of women in engineering and infrastructure more broadly has a long history, but it’s not without significant exceptions: women were often recognized more as inventors than engineers before the field underwent a process of formalization in the 1800s... Still, those who did (and many who trained informally or with private tutors) often had outsized impacts on the industry, like three we’ll look at a little more closely: Emily Roebling, clandestine project manager and unofficial chief engineer of the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge; Marian S. Parker, the first woman to graduate from University of Michigan’s College of Engineering and a structural engineer in skyscraper-sprouting New York at the turn of the 20th century; and Hattie Scott Peterson, the first Black female civil engineer in the United States.
But by the mid- to late-19th century, engineering (along with architecture) became a professional field and programs at colleges and universities established programs devoted to structural, civil, mechanical, and mining engineering across the United States — although virtually exclusively for men. The first female graduate of an engineering program was Elizabeth Bragg (1858 – 1929), who earned her Bachelors in engineering from University of California, Berkeley in 1876 (and paved the way for noted architect Julia Morgan to graduate from the same program with a Bachelors in civil engineering 18 years later in 1894). However, Bragg never practiced as an engineer: after graduating, she worked as a teacher for a short time until marriage, after which she remained at home as a wife and a mother until her death in 1929.
Indeed, women in engineering remained very rare: according to Troy Eller English, the Society of Women Engineers’ archivist, it was unusual for more than one woman a year (if any) to earn an engineering degree in the United States between 1876 until 1900 — meaning that by the turn of the century, the United States had fewer than 25 trained female engineers. Even until World War I, only a handful of women obtained an engineering degree each year. Still, those who did (and many who trained informally or with private tutors) often had outsized impacts on the industry, like three we’ll look at a little more closely: Emily Roebling, clandestine project manager and unofficial chief engineer of the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge; Marian S. Parker, the first woman to graduate from University of Michigan’s College of Engineering and a structural engineer in skyscraper-sprouting New York at the turn of the 20th century; and Hattie Scott Peterson, the first Black female civil engineer in the United States.
Emily Roebling, “Facile Fingers” of the Brooklyn Bridge (1843-1903)
Born to a well-to-do family in upstate New York, Emily Warren Roebling’s early life followed much like those around her with schooling into her teens and marriage to Washington Roebling, a civil engineer, in her early 20s. The couple traveled throughout Europe after their marriage in 1865, and researched wire mills, bridges, and caisson foundations; Emily gave birth to their only son during this period of travel in 1867.
Emily Warren Roebling (detail from her 1903 Brooklyn Daily Eagle obituary). Courtesy Brooklyn Public Library.
Things, however, took a decidedly unexpected turn when her father-in-law John Roebling, a German-born and -trained engineer who had designed the famed Brooklyn Bridge, passed away shortly after their return to New York. Suddenly, the longest suspension bridge in the world was mid-construction — and without a chief engineer. Washington was promoted from his role of assistant engineer to his father’s former position of chief engineer of the massive undertaking. But Washington was also soon rendered incapable of running the project: he came down with “the bends” (decompression disease) after working in the compressed air environment of the caissons that enabled the bridge’s construction.
New York pier of the Brooklyn Bridge, 1876. Courtesy NYPL.
Enter: Emily, who was unwilling to let her husband be removed as chief engineer. Instead, she became the main conduit between the project and her husband, initially relaying information from Washington to his assistants and reporting on the progress of construction. However, over time, she taught herself engineering and took over much of the chief engineer’s duties; an 1883 article on the opening of the bridge from The New York Times noted that she "filled his [Washington’s] position as chief of the engineering staff," doing everything from redesigning the shapes of steel and iron members to day-to-day monitoring of its progress and overall project management of the bridge’s construction. Over the course of ten years (!), she became an expert in the strength of materials, stress analysis, cable construction, and the calculations of catenary curves, in addition to regular communication with politicians, other engineers, and construction crews.
In fact, when she passed away at the age of 59 in 1903, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle praised her "facile fingers" (love the alliteration!) that worked on the project, her "self sacrificing devotion" to its completion, and "her desire for that higher education [of engineering] from which she has been long debarred." Although a few other newspapers had acknowledged her contributions to connecting the once-disconnected worlds of Brooklyn and Manhattan (remember, this was when the two were still two separate cities! The boroughs were joined only in 1898), for the most part she has remained largely a footnote in the bridge’s history, although a plaque on the bridge and a recent The New York Times entry for their “Overlooked” series on her that do her justice.
Marian S. Parker, A Forte in Skyscrapers (c. 1873-1909)
While architecture might have been Detroit native Marian Sara Parker’s initial interest, it was ultimately engineering that won her over. "At first, I thought to study architecture, for plans and designs have always had a great attraction for me. Then, as I became more and more interested in mathematics, I realized that something involving that branch of science would be more to my liking. Civil engineering was just the thing, so at 15 I began earnest preparation [for admission to college]," she recounted to The Boston Globe in 1897.
Just two years earlier in 1895, Marian had become the first female to graduate from the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Michigan, where she "was admitted to the regular course in civil engineering, just as though I were a man.” She did, however, say that she was viewed by her peers as a curiosity: “I have no doubt that some of the faculty and many of the students thought it was strange,” she noted. And fortunately for Marian, this view of her as an anomaly instead of as a threat to the masculine world of math, science, and engineering meant that “no one, however, expressed an unfavorable opinion or in any way discouraged me."
This good fortune continued as Marian entered the workforce, quickly finding employment at the engineering firm of Purdy & Henderson at their New York office. She proudly announced that she was "given the same salary that is given to men doing the same work, and equal chances of advancement.” How she confirmed that is unclear, but I’m still very pleased with the sentiment!
Marian S. Parker in the Louisville Courier. 10 Jan 1897.
Marian’s early projects at Purdy & Henderson included designing and detailing the framing and structure for half of the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel at 33rd Street and Fifth Avenue (Schultze and Weaver, Architects; now demolished) and the Mills Model Tenements. She remained at Purdy & Henderson for 12 years, working on other major projects in New York including the structural engineering for the Broad-Exchange Building (1900-1902), some of the early planning for the Flatiron Building (1902), 42 Broadway (1902), the Barclay Building at Broadway and Duane Streets (1902-1905), the 14th Street department store of the Siegel Company (1904), and the Bank of the Metropolis at Union Square (1902-1903), among others.
Indeed, as The New York Press declared in 1905, “skyscrapers [are] her forte.” But by that point, Marian’s positive outlook on sexism in engineering had (unsurprisingly) faded. “There are a lot of men who think, because I don't go out and climb all over a building, that naturally I am not fitted for doing the work my employers gave me," she commented; she said that women were often not taken seriously in engineering. A short two years later in 1907, Marian married bookkeeper Albert E. Madgwick, and, it appears, moved to Portland, Oregon, leaving her engineering career behind.
Sadly, she passed away in 1909. However, in 1923, her mother, Sarah Drake Parker, established a fund to assist women attending the Colleges of Engineering and Architecture at the University of Michigan, in memory of Marian — and a Marian Sarah Parker Award still exists today. And, of course, her legacy lives on not only in the buildings whose beams, columns, and girders she so accurately calculated (most of the office buildings downtown are still standing!), but also, as The Boston Globe described, “as a pioneer in a new field, [where] women look to her to prove her ability and disprove old-time theories against the limitations of her sex.
Hattie Scott Peterson, Hydraulic Engineer Extraordinaire (1913-1993)
“Outspoken and capable,” succinctly read Hattie Scott’s entry in the 1946 yearbook for Howard University. Believed to be the first Black woman to earn a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, Hattie was part of the first generation of Black female engineers, who did not begin to earn their degrees until the 1940s because of double discrimination against both their sex and their race (their white female counterparts, as we mentioned, began trickling into universities starting in the late 1800s).
Originally from Norfolk, Virginia, Hattie was the only child of Hattie (Williams), a domestic servant and waitress, and Uzell Scott, a foreman at a local mill (local directories between 1915 and 1933 also listed him as a cooper, or barrel-maker). The 1930 census notes that the family owned their house — and a radio! — suggesting that although they were likely the descendants of former slaves, they had managed to secure some financial stability.
Hattie Peterson during her tenure with the USACE Sacramento District. Courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
After attending Abraham Lincoln School and Booker T. Washington High School in Norfolk, she enrolled in Virginia State College and studied public school music for a year and a half. In 1934, Hattie had married porter William Bright Jr.; after a divorce in 1940, she obtained a position in the Office of the General Accounting with the government service in Washington, DC and worked with government examiners whose job it was to audit government contracts during World War II. The contracts were for the use of heavy equipment, sparking an interest in machinery and equipment and leading her to read up on related subjects. “From that point,” noted a 1946 article on her in the New Journal and Guide of Norfolk, Virginia, “her interest was aroused in the study of engineering."
Hattie Peterson with Sacramento District co-workers in 1965. Courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
In the early 1940s, she enrolled at Howard University and remarried fellow student Donald Charles Peterson (1912-1978) in 1943. After graduating from Howard University with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, she hoped to work as a civil engineer; if she didn’t find work opportunities, she told the New Journal and Guide, she planned on furthering her studies in engineering at Catholic University. However, in 1947, she and her husband moved to California, and she began working as a survey and cartographic engineer conducting photogrammetry for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Sacramento.
In 1954, she joined the local U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in 1954, where she was the first woman engineer and encouraged engineering as a profession for women. She worked in the Hydrology Section of the Sacramento Engineering Department, forecasting floods, designing navigation projects, and researching flood control issues. "She now plans ship channels and plots the course of floods" and researches flood control on rivers in California, Utah, and Nevada, noted a 1961 article from Norfolk’s New Journal and Guide.
Hattie was a member of the National Technical Association, the American Society of Photogrammetry, and the Unitarian Church; she also continued her love of music, playing the organ for her church and becoming a member of the American Guild of Organists. She died on April 10, 1993 in Sacramento, leaving behind an endowment for scholarships at Howard University. Additionally, the Hattie Peterson Inspiration Award was established at the Sacramento district of the USACE, the purpose of which is to recognize individuals whose “actions best exemplify the highest qualities of personal and professional perseverance through social challenges.”
Resources & References
Women in Engineering: Pioneers and Trailblazers by Margaret Layne
Changing the Face of Engineering: The African American Experience edited by John Brooks Slaughter, Yu Tao, and Willie Pearson, Jr. Johns Hopkins University Press
Engineering pioneer remembered during Black History Month by Jeremy Croft
Meet 10 Amazing Women Who Influenced STEM by EBA Engineering
Diversity in the STEM workforce varies widely across jobs from PEW Research
Setting the Record Straight: An Introduction to the History and Evolution of Women's Professional Achievement by Betty Reynolds and Jill Tietjen