HISTORY of the Society of Women Engineers
The Society
of Women Engineers was started in 1950 by women who saw the need for
an organization to support and encourage the success of women in engineering.
SWE was incorporated in 1952. SWE has grown to over 17,000 members in
90 Sections and 300 student sections.
SWE-BOSTON HISTORY
SWE-Boston
was one of four initial Sections of SWE. The following paragraphs highlight
our Section’s rich history of supporting women in engineering.
In 1950, SWE-Boston's first year of existence,
the Section had 10 members (we now have over 350!) One of those charter
members, Mary Pottle, is still a member today.
The 1950-1951
SWE "New England Branch" membership listing showed our members
had the following employers: Jackson & Mooreland in Park Square,
Sylvania Electric in Boston, Lever Bros. in Cambridge, American Resinous
Chemicals in Peabody, and Allis-Chalmers in Boston.
On Valentine's Day 1951, 9 "girls" met
at Northeastern to discuss reorganizing and revitalizing the New England
District of SWE, as SWE-Boston was then known.
In February 1952, SWE was officially registered
as a Corporation in Wilmington, Delaware.
In August 1953 Mary Pottle, Section Vice-Chairman
(and still a Section Member) wrote a letter to CBS "commending
them on their series of programs on engineering and suggesting greater
emphasis on women in engineering".
The September 1953 issue of the Massachusetts
Professional Engineer ran a photo of SWE-Boston member Eileen Donohue,
with the text "In answer to inquiries as to who is Eileen, the
unidentified femme mentioned in VARIETY's Radio Review.... Donohue tossed
queries to Bert W. Whitehurst in part one of the 'Romance of Engineering.'
Miss Donahue is well known in Boston as the Executive Secretary of the
Massachusetts Building Congress."
At the September 1954 Executive Council meeting,
the possibility of a SWE Student Section at MIT was discussed.
By 1955, SWE-Boston
had 35 members. (There are many SWE Sections now with fewer!) A Section
Manual was written in August 1955. The 1955 SWE Achievement Award recipient,
Dr. Margaret Hutchinson (Rousseau), was a SWE-Boston member and Stone
& Webster employee. Her speech at the Convention "stressed
the importance of femininity to the woman engineer", according
to the minutes of the SWE-Boston EC meeting on July 12, 1955.
The September 1956 SWE-Boston meeting featured
two (male) speakers on the topic "How to Reach the Top". One
speaker was a Chemical Engineer professor at MIT, the other a VP at
Stone & Webster. Neither speaker mentioned women, all references
in both speeches were to "he" and "men", and the
Stone & Webster gentleman even referenced the New Testament of the
Bible in his talk (as published in the November 1956 New England Professional
Engineer).
In July 1960, SWE-Boston was planning the 1961
SWE National Convention, to be held in June 1961.
In September
1962, the boundaries of SWE-Boston, which had previously included Maine,
Vermont, New Hampshire and all of Massachusetts, were redefined as within
60 miles of Boston, omitting Connecticut. This meant a bit of southeastern
Maine, Massachusetts as far west as Athol and Ware, Rhode Island excluding
the southwest corner, and southeast New Hampshire including Manchester
and Dover, were all part of SWE's Boston Section.
An August 1973 meeting at MIT had Dr. Millie Dresselhaus
(still a SWE-Boston member today) "In the Chair".
A September 1973 meeting speaker was the President
of the Men's Auxiliary of SWE, or MASWE.
In the summer of 1975, SWE voted to allow men
to join as full members. That was also the year students became represented
on the Council of Section Representatives.
August 1978 is the first occurrence of a computer-printed
document in SWE-Boston's archives (as opposed to typed, mimeographed,
hand-written, or on carbon paper!)
On July 18, 1980, SWE-Boston's "Terry's Trip"
coloring book and a few of our Newsletters were sealed in the Boston
Women's Time Capsule at Faneuil Hall, as part of CHOICES! The Women's
Expo. The Time Capsule will be opened in 2080 by the Director of the
Radcliffe Schlesinger Library, the Mayor of Boston and the Boston Globe.
In the summer of 1989, SWE-Boston reached 300
members! A "MetroWest Satellite" group of SWE-Boston members
began planning for meetings around I-495, with the eventual goal of
splitting the Section into two Sections. Several meetings were held
that year. The New England Shoreline SWE Section was chartered, and
about a dozen SWE-Boston members in Rhode Island were transferred to
SWE-NESS.
In 1991, SWE's National Board of Directors met
in Boston. SWE-Boston was awarded the bid for the 1995 SWE National
Convention.
In the summer of 1993, SWE Headquarters moved
to its current location at 120 Wall Street in New York City. Planning
for the 1995 Convention began in earnest.
The 1995 SWE Convention, at the Sheraton Boston,
was the BEST SWE CONVENTION EVER! We broke all attendance and fundraising
records to date, and the conference featured events such as Networking
Night at the New England Aquarium.
In 1999, SWE-Boston started “regional networking
dinners” to reach out to members in all corners of SWE’s geographical
boundaries. Dinners (and sometimes lunches) are held almost every month
in Southern NH, North of Boston, West of Boston, South of Boston, and
in Boston/Cambridge.
SWE-Boston hosted
the Region F 2000 Conference at Raytheon in Lexington. This Conference
celebrated both SWE’s and SWE-Boston’s 50 Year anniversaries. The Conference
banquet featured a panel of charter and long-time members, who recounted
their experiences in SWE and how times have changed.
In 2001, SWE
began the transition of Headquarters from the New York location to Chicago.
In 2002, Boston-area
student sections at Suffolk and Merrimack were deactivated. In 2003,
the newly-formed Frank W. Olin College of Engineering started the process
to charter a student section.
A group of SWE members in NH has been meeting and holding events since the spring of 2005. They have decided to charter a new SWE section in southern NH. The group consist of present SWE-Boston section members and members at large (MALs) who live in southern NH as well as interested non-members. The Southern New Hampshire (SWE-SNH) section was chartered on May 2008.
A group of SWE members in NH has been meeting and holding events since the spring of 2005. They have decided to charter a new SWE section in southern NH. The group consist of present SWE-Boston section members and members at large (MALs) who live in southern NH as well as interested non-members. The Southern New Hampshire (SWE-SNH) section was chartered on May 2008.
SWE-Boston continues
to be the one of the largest SWE sections, and one that offers some
of the best professional development, outreach, networking, and social
programs. We hope you can be a part of SWE-Boston’s history!