Electrifying Women: Understanding the long history of women in engineering
Why and by whom was the UK’s Women’s Engineering Society – www.wes.org.uk – founded in 1919 – the first such society in the world?

How has this Society survived to its centenary while being so little known in British society, while its better-known sibling organisation, the Electrical Association for Women, ceased operations a generation ago?

The presenters will discuss these historical questions both in the broader context of women’s increased employment in skilled technical professions after the First World War, and in relation to present-day debates concerning the low participation of UK women in engineering (a lower rate than any other European nation).

This talk draws on the speakers’ work on the AHRC-funded ‘Electrifying Women’ Project – electrifyingwomen.org.
Date: 1 November 2019, 14:00 (Friday, 3rd week, Michaelmas 2019)
Venue: T. S. Eliot Lecture Theatre
Speakers: Dr Elizabeth Bruton (Science Museum, London), Graeme Gooday (Professor of History of Science and Technology, University of Leeds)
Organising department: Merton College
Organiser: Dr Hatice Yıldız (History, Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: hatice.yildiz@merton.ox.ac.uk
Topics:
Booking required?: Not required
Cost: Free
Audience: Public
Editor: Simon Cope