Items14The creator’s order
  1. 1Emily Warren RoeblingEmily Warren RoeblingKeeping work moving on the Brooklyn Bridge When chief engineer Washington Roebling could no longer work regularly on site, Emily took on much of the communication between him and the people building the bridge. She learned the technical details well enough to carry decisions through. Read her…0
  2. 2Hertha AyrtonHertha AyrtonBorn Apr 28, 1854Explaining why an electric arc hissed Ayrton traced the hiss in carbon arc lamps to oxygen reaching the crater in the carbon. The sound and the change in the arc’s appearance were clues to what was happening at the electrode. Her work makes a good starting point if you want to see how a seemingly…0
  3. 3Edith ClarkeEdith ClarkeBorn Feb 10, 1883Simplifying calculations for power lines Clarke’s graphical calculator let engineers work out electrical quantities for long transmission lines with less calculation by hand. Look up the device to see how a diagram could help people design a power system before digital computation. Clarke was…0
  4. 4Elsie MacGillElsie MacGillBorn Mar 27, 1905Turning an aircraft design into a production job At Canadian Car and Foundry, MacGill helped prepare the plant to manufacture the Hawker Hurricane in quantity. She also worked on adaptations for cold-weather flying. Her story is about what happens after a basic design exists, when a factory has to…0
  5. 5Grace HopperGrace HopperBorn Dec 9, 1906Making reusable code easier to call up Hopper’s A-0 system for UNIVAC let a programmer identify routines the machine could retrieve and put to work. The useful idea was that you could describe the job at one level while the system handled more of the details underneath. That is a good place to…0
  6. 6Mary Jackson (engineer)Mary Jackson (engineer)Born Apr 9, 1921Measuring airflow at supersonic speeds Jackson and Kazimierz Czarnecki used a pressure tunnel at Langley to study how airflow changed over cones with different nose angles at supersonic speeds. Their report puts her engineering work in view. Start there to see how a deliberately simple test shape…0
  7. 7Beatrice HicksBeatrice HicksSensing the density of gas At Newark Controls, Hicks developed a device for sensing gas density in equipment that used gas as a fuel or an insulator. That is a less visible kind of engineering than designing the equipment itself. Her contribution is a reminder that a system can depend on a small…0
  8. 8Stephanie KwolekStephanie KwolekBorn Jul 31, 1923Making a strong, lightweight fiber Kwolek’s work on para-aramid fibers led to Kevlar. You can trace the usefulness of the discovery through applications as different as mooring ropes, canoe hulls, and fiber-optic cables. Put those examples side by side and the value becomes clearer: strength…0
  9. 9Frances NorthcuttFrances NorthcuttBorn Aug 10, 1943Working out a route home from the Moon Northcutt helped develop return-to-Earth trajectories for Apollo and worked with the team supporting Apollo 8. The mission is often remembered for getting to lunar orbit. Her work brings the return into focus and shows why mission planners had to prepare for…0
  10. 10Raye MontagueRaye MontagueBorn Jan 21, 1935Bringing computers into preliminary ship design Montague and her team used a computer to produce a preliminary design for a U.S. Navy frigate. The part worth looking at is the early draft, when a design team has to put information from different specialists together and keep track of how choices…0