Edith Clarke

Edith Clarke was born on February 10, 1883 and brought up on a farm in Howard Country, Maryland. Back then women did not go to college but Edith did. She went to Vassar College in New York where she studied math and astronomy. She taught for a few years and then went to the University of Wisconsin to study engineering. She got interested in computing after she spent the summer working for the AT&T (telephone company.) Back then, computing meant people who were interested in performing difficult math problems. She decided not to go back to Wisconsin but stay with AT&T working with computing. She created some important ways to do math calculations faster that really helped the United States during World War I. In 1918 Edith went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT.) She was the first woman to earn a degree in electrical engineering. She was the first woman to teach engineering at the University of Texas. She was the first woman ever elected to the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. Edith Clarke died on October 29, 1959 in Olney, Maryland. Edith opened the field of engineering to other women; she was a real leader in the field.

by Oscar, fourth grade, 2006