Although all of the other major engineering disciplines have almost reached gender parity, and in the case of biomedical engineering tipped in favor of more females, the number of women in electrical engineering remains stubbornly low at 12%. In fact, numerous high-profile members of the major professional society for electrical engineers, the IEEE, claim that there has never been interest among women in electrical engineering. My research disproves this underlying assumption.

As the Linda Hall Library’s 2024-25 NEH Postdoctoral Fellow, I combed through the former library of the United Engineering Society and the publications of the IEEE (Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers), and its predecessor organizations, the IRE (Institute of Radio Engineers) and AIEE (American Institute of Electrical Engineers), to create a database of all of the women who contributed to the early decades of electrical engineering. In advance of the upcoming 150th anniversary of the IEEE, I am creating a digital visualization and an accompanying book to shine a light on the women who have always been there, yet who are rarely recognized.

This short presentation will be an overview of my research, showcasing new statistics on the history of women in electrical engineering and featuring biographies of several key women. Social network maps will show where the women lived, went to school, and worked. These stories need to be told to encourage future women to go into the field.

Since the time of Valentina Tereshkova (the first woman space in 1963) and Maria Klenova (the first woman scientist in Antarctica in 1957), the history of women scientists doing research in extreme spaces, such as Antarctica, outer space and deep and high seas, is replete with inadequate or distorted understanding of the female physiology and its response to extreme environments. These research spaces are usually designed for men (with women being kept out, even when allowed by law, under pretexts such as lack of appropriate toilets), and women have to don specialised clothing that are designed for the male body. American astronaut Cady Coleman had to train in Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) suits that were so large that two of her could fit into one suit, and she had to fold over the extra fabric of the boot of her launch suit (used for her water survival training) and bind it with hair elastics in order to be able to move safely. Paleoceanographer Anna Glueder wrote about ill-fitting immersion suits that could turn a female-sized person trying to survive “head down in the water”. These experiences are so common that they seem less like oversights and more like a deliberate strategy to keep women scientists out of these research spaces, where survival depends on the robustness of clothing and equipment. My paper traces the history of the understanding of the female physiology in extreme environments, and records and reports on the embodied experience of women doing science in these spaces.

Risk and safety have become powerful political motifs. Risks, however, are not just “out there.” Over the last two decades, historians of risk and disaster have demonstrated that landscapes of risk are socially constructed, for instance, through shoreline settlement in flood-prone areas. Such scholarship has advanced our understanding of the creation of risks. Yet, many open questions remain about societies’ responses to risk. I argue that fire response technologies materialized values that continue to guide risk management. My paper contributes to the scholarship on risk and technology. Specifically, I offer a transnational analysis of firefighting in Germany and the U.S., examining personal equipment such as uniforms and medals. These seemingly mundane artifacts reveal how cultural contexts shaped risk response. During a period of high industrialization, firefighting became a militarized profession of men. Uniforms, medals, and parades cultivated an ethos of masculinity that attracted generations of men to the profession. In contrast, women were excluded from fighting fires, depicted as technologically inept, vulnerable, and the causes of fires. My paper also shows that investment in fire services was central to nation-building and reflected the state’s increasing commitment to risk management. Firefighters’ equipment, such as clubs and axes, had not only symbolic value but were also used to enforce governmental authority. Fire journals and municipal records from both sides of the Atlantic reveal how firemen assisted police during social upheavals. Recognizing that risk management will be a central challenge for future generations, my research on gender and risk is timely and important.