IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2015 - 19

and mathematics (STEM),
Bix is a STEM educator.

PHOTOS BY TANER EDIS.

Bix enjoyed the courses she took in
the history of science and found the topic
interesting enough to pursue as a graduate degree. "I fell in love with the history
of technology because it's tangible. I loved
learning about the machines, artifacts,
and items around us," she explains. She
completed her Ph.D. degree in the history of science at Johns Hopkins University, became a director at ISU's Center for
Historical Studies of Technology and Science, and rose through the ranks there,
publishing many articles and books and
teaching classes that attract not only history majors but also engineering and science students at ISU.
"I appreciate when science and engineering majors sign up for my 'Intro to
History of Technology and Engineering'
classes because I think it's valuable to have
a sense of history. Young engineers tend
to fall into the trap of thinking that engineering is a steady story of
progress-that it used
to be primitive and
it's getting better, but history
challenges that
assumption.
Sometimes it's
one step forward
a n d two s tep s
back. Sometimes
how people relate to
Dr. Amy S. Bix
technology is about
human choices and social concerns, not
just developing along a steady path, and
students can overlook that. I love that
about history," she says.
She teaches another class about the
history of women in science, technology, and medicine and says that most
people still assume that historically,
science and engineering have been all
about men, other than Marie Curie,
whom almost everyone has heard about.
Bix adds that the history of women in
science and technology is much more
interesting than that. Although history
classes are not traditionally associated
with science, technology, engineering,

With a shortage of available male engineers and
a sudden need, the book
describes how factories, the
The Story of Engineering
federal government, and
Education
a number of colleges got
Fifteen years ago, when she
together and created crash
started teaching a class on
courses for emergency war
the history of women in scitraining in science and
ence, technology, and mediengineering all around the
cine, Bix had no problem
Tech!,
United States. Some were
locating texts about women Girls Coming to Tech!
published by MIT Press
for men, but a number were
in science and medicine, but in January 2014.
aimed at women to help
there were no scholarly books
them get war jobs in industries like petroabout women in engineering. She started
leum, chemical, and aircraft.
writing a book on the history of women
The book also covers one notable
in engineering for the course that would
program by the Curtiss-Wright Airplane
appeal not just to undergraduate students
Company. It banded together with seven
but also to a wider audience: engineers
universities and began the Curtiss-Wright
of both genders and anyone interested in
Cadet Program, giving 700 women a tenSTEM subjects who finds it interesting to
month training program in aeronautical
see how the engineering field developed.
engineering. Women took the essential
The book focuses on the education
classes that were normal during peaceavailable to women who wanted to become
time, but in an intensive format that preengineers in the United States since the
pared them to work at factories to turn
1800s, and it gives a broad overview of the
out airplanes for the war effort. It was the
history of women in college-when and
first time there was an intensive focus on
how women could and were able to access
recruiting large numbers of women for
education and what it was like throughout
engineering. Admitting female wartime
time. It covers very early history, where
students permanently transformed Rensonly a handful of women studied engiselaer Polytechnic Institute, which never
neering at small colleges and land-grant
returned to its pre-war all-male status.
schools like Iowa State College, Cornell
In the last part of the book covering
University, and Berkeley, and presents the
the postwar decade, Bix devotes three
extreme reactions by early 20th-century
chapters to in-depth case studies of Geornewspaper articles, which labled women
gia Tech, Caltech, and the Massachsetts
as "invaders" in engineering classrooms.
Institute of Technology, showing how
She found that women were repeatedly
and why each school addressed the issue
portrayed using this loaded word, and
of admitting more women into engineerhow unusual it was to think about a
ing. Her final chapter takes the history
woman going into engineering.
of female engineering students up to the
World War II changed all that. The
present, reviewing ongoing debates, chalnext few chapters of the book discuss
lenges, and gains.
these changes that took place when airplane, tank, and other military equipment
factories were too short-handed to work
The Future of Women in STEM Fields
24-hour, seven-day per week shifts. They
Bix says that the last 50 years has been
were desperate enough to hire women
the period of the greatest change for
to work not only on assembly lines but
women in science and technology. Ideas
also in the engineering shops, and they
and practices about women, gender,
needed engineers to help develop and
engineering, and professionalism have
supervise production.
undergone great change. "The efforts

JUNE 2015

IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2015