Title: American Society of Women Engineers and Architects Type : Manuscript Collection Dates: 1919-1946 Size : .5 linear feet (1 MS) ID #: 1802 OCLC: ©Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs

Scope & Contents

The American Society of Women Engineers and Architects Collection was originally deposited with the national Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Archives in 1994. In 2002, materials documenting the early 20th century organizing efforts of female engineers were re-organized into a separate manuscript collection.

Following World War I, and prior to the founding and incorporation of a national Society of Women Engineers, graduate women in engineering created a small female professional network, eventually calling themselves the “American Society of Women Engineers and Architects.” Two early leaders included Lou Alta Melton and Hilda Counts, both graduates of the University of Colorado-Boulder. Their efforts to survey female students enrolled in college-level engineering and architecture courses resulted in one of the earliest national enrollment surveys of women in engineering.

Other early pioneers, such as University of Colorado graduate Elsie Eaves, counseled and advised young women interested in pursuing careers in science and technology. Eaves also assisted in providing information on successful female engineers to various organizations, and eventually gained a reputation as a “center of information” on women in engineering. A SWE charter member, for a number of years she served as Archives Chair for the national Society of Women Engineers following its founding in the early 1950s.

The American Society of Women Engineers collection includes correspondence related to Melton’s and Counts’ 1919-1920 female engineering enrollment survey; early membership application, constitution, newsletter and correspondence of the American Society of Women Engineers and Architects; incoming and outgoing correspondence of Elsie Eaves; and a copy of Michigan graduate engineer Alice Goff’s 1946 publication, Women Can Be Engineers.

Subjects

American Society of Women Engineers and Architects
Engineering
Engineering—Societies, etc.
Engineering—Vocational guidance
Engineering students—United States
Engineers
Women—Employment—United States
Women—Societies and Clubs—United States
Women engineering students
Women engineers
Women in engineering

Related Collections

Society of Women Engineers Collections

Containers

Box 1

Series 1: American Society of Women Engineers and Architects
1-1	Melton and Counts Women in Engineering Academic Survey, January – May, 1919
1-2	Melton and Counts Women in Engineering Academic Survey, May 1919- June 1920
1-3	American Society of Women Engineers and Architects; constitution and by-laws, 1919
1-4	American Society of Women Engineers and Architects; membership application and logo, ca. 1920
1-5	American Society of Women Engineers and Architects; Women Engineers and Architects, edited by Alice Goff; February 1939, July 1938
Series 2: Early Women in Engineering (1930-1946)
1-6	Elsie Eaves; correspondence, 1929-1940
1-7	Women’s Engineering Society (WES) of Britain, 1930-31; membership card, list of U.S. members, articles
1-8	Women’s Engineering Society (WES) of Britain; The Woman Engineer: The Organ of the Women’s Engineering Society of Britain; 1936-1937
1-9	American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE); Women Associate Members, 1944
1-10	Women Can Be Engineers, 1946, by Alice Goff.