Amy Sue Bix

Engineeresses invade campus: four decades of debate over technical coeducation

Engineering education in the United States has a gendered history, one that reveals an ongoing debate over womens place in the predominantly male engineering profession. Historically, women in engineering programs, even more than in science, have stood out due to their rarity. Their very presence thus led university communities to confront questions about what it means to be a man or a woman in a modern technological society, what it means to be an engineer. The article concentrates on four technically-centered schools that had, due to implicit or explicit policies, remained completely or virtually all-male up to WWII or beyond. These case studies demonstrate that in the debate about whether to become coeducational, faculty, administrators, students, and alumni came to confront a difficult set of issues concerning gender and technology, traditions which tied technical knowledge to masculinity. The very process of rethinking admission and education policies led these colleges to discuss whether or not women had a place studying engineering and if so, on what terms they should be admitted. The authors work examines the period from the 1940s through the 1970s, asking questions about when, why, and how four schools (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the California Institute of Technology, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), moved toward coeducation.

'Engineeresses' 'invade' campus: four decades of debate over technical coeducation

The history of engineering education for women helps identify the ways in which observers have interpreted the gendered nature of the engineering profession. Historically, women in engineering programs, even more than in science, stood out due to their rarity. Thus, their very presence led people to confront questions about what it means to be a man or a woman in a technological society, what it means to be a professional engineer. The paper concentrates on four technically-centered schools (RPI, Georgia Tech, Caltech, MIT) which had by policy or for most effective purposes remained all-male up to WWII or beyond. In the debate about whether to become coeducational, faculty, administrators, students, and alumni came to confront a difficult set of issues concerning gender and technology.

“Progress shadowed by human waste”: the Women’s Bureau films scientific management

Within the context of America’s Depression, the Women’s Bureau of the US Department of Labor produced a unique film, Behind the Scenes in the Machine Age. The movie emphasized the seriousness of economic crisis, but promised that by eliminating “waste”, America could return to solid ground. The concept of “waste” allowed the Bureau to link scientific management to a broader message preaching workplace safety, endorsing government expertise and economic planning, and underlining women’s role in modern industrial production. The organization tailored its philosophy of scientific management to a popular audience, while highlighting woman‐centered aspects of economic life.

The Rahmi M. Koc Museum, Istanbul

The past decade has witnessed the establishment, rapid growth, and gradual maturing of the Rahmi M. Koç Museum in Istanbul, Turkey’s only museum of science, technology, and the history of technology. Its focus on transportation, industrial, and communications technologies is familiar to European and American visitors, but new for Turkish citizens. While the Koç Museum displays objects from all over Europe and the United States, it seeks to highlight Turkish perspectives on history of technology. A small but dedicated staff has significantly expanded and improved the exhibits over just the last two years. Museum funding comes entirely from the Rahmi M. Koç Museum and Cultural Foundation, whose head, Rahmi Koç, chairs the Koç Group, Turkey’s largest corporation. In 1928 Rahmi’s father Vehbi became Turkey’s representative for Ford Motor Company and Standard Oil. Over subsequent decades, Vehbi set up Turkish manufacturing arrangements with Siemens, Fiat, and General Electric. In the 1960s, Koç companies began manufacturing the Anadol, the first car completely built in Turkey; the Koç Group also produced the first locally manufactured examples of many domestic and industrial items, from light bulbs to tractors. Describing the museum’s origin, Rahmi Koç explains that since childhood he has been fascinated by Istanbul’s steam locomotives and ferries as well as imported model trains and clockwork toys. Visiting England, Koç writes, he “saw how much importance they attached to heritage and to the machines and tools from the Industrial Revolution.” Entering the family Ford agency and preparing to begin Turkish auto manufacture, Koç trav-

Race on the Line: Gender, Labor, and Technology in the Bell System, 1880-1980

Race on the Line is the first book to address the convergence of race, gender, and technology in the telephone industry. Venus Green—a former Bell System employee and current labor historian—presents a hundred year history of telephone operators and their work processes, from the invention of the telephone in 1876 to the period immediately before the break-up of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1984. Green shows how, as technology changed from a manual process to a computerized one, sexual and racial stereotypes enabled management to manipulate both the workers and the workplace. More than a simple story of the impact of technology, Race on the Line combines oral history, personal experience, and archival research to weave a complicated history of how skill is constructed and how its meanings change within a rapidly expanding industry. Green discusses how women faced an environment where male union leaders displayed economic as well as gender biases and where racism served as a persistent system of division. Separated into chronological sections, the study moves from the early years when the Bell company gave both male and female workers opportunities to advance; to the era of the “white lady” image of the company, when African American women were excluded from the industry and feminist working-class consciousness among white women was consequently inhibited; to the computer era, a time when black women had waged a successful struggle to integrate the telephone operating system but faced technological displacement and unrewarding work. An important study of working-class American women during the twentieth century, this book will appeal to a wide audience, particularly students and scholars with interest in women’s history, labor history, African American history, the history of technology, and business history.