Historic Rejection Letters to Women Engineers #MakerEducation
This collection of rejection letters compiled by The Society of Women Engineers shows just how hard women engineers had to work to break into the field and how many of them persevered, despite the obstacles.
The Society of Women Engineers recently shared a trove of astonishing documents from the group’s archives. They’re letters, loads of them, all directed at women engineering students who had contacted various universities about their interest in connecting with other women studying engineering.
Lou Alta Melton and Hilda Counts, both students at the University of Colorado in 1919, were trying to start their own professional society. Their letters—and the many responses they received—are part of the Society of Women Engineers sprawling archives, which are housed at Wayne State University in Detroit.
“We have not now, have never had, and do not expect to have in the near future, any women students registered in our engineering department,” Thorndike Saville, and an associate professor at the University of North Carolina, wrote in his reply to Melton. He signed it, “Yours very truly.”
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Each Tuesday is EducationTuesday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts about educators and all things STEM. Adafruit supports our educators and loves to spread the good word about educational STEM innovations!