Today in History – December 28, 1886 – Josephine Cochrane is issued patent for a commercially successful dishwasher. Josephine Cochrane received the patent for the first commercially successful dishwasher. A mechanical device, turning a crank would provide a continuous flow of either soap suds or hot water to a rack of dishes. She founded a company to manufacture these dish washers, which eventually became KitchenAid. Josephine Cochran unveiled her initial prototype at the 1893, World’s Fair. For many years, only hotels and large restaurants could afford dishwashers. In the 1950s, dishwashers began to make their way to the general public.

Also on this date in history in 1895, world’s first movie theater opens in Paris. Auguste and Louis Lumire held their first private screening of projected motion pictures in March of 1895 and their first public screening of movies on this date in 1895, at Paris’s Salon Indien du Grand Cafe. It all began when a handful of passersby were lured inside the Grand Cafe at 14 Boulevard des Capucines by a poster enigmatically advertising “Cinematographe Lumire.” This history-making presentation featured ten short films, including their first film, Sortie des Usines Lumire  Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumire Factory). After paying a franc, descending into the grandly named “Salon Indien” in the basement, and sinking into armchairs before an empty screen, some of them wondered if they’d been tricked into seeing yet another cheesy magic lantern show. Then, as the audience stared in disbelief, the two-dimensional screen turned into a panorama of movement, a convincing, Frankensteinian display of artificial human life that would forever change the way we spend our Saturday nights.”

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on women inventors and digital movies and sound. For curricular resources, visit the Mechanical Engineering Education and Computer Science Education community site.

Today in History – December 23, 1867 – Birth of first self-made millionairess (Sarah Breedlove for hair straightener invention, products and services). Born in poverty in 1867 (left graphic is of her birth house) on the shores of the Mississippi River in northeast Louisiana, her parents died of ‘yellow fever‘ while she was a young child of seven. Her parents, Owen and Minera Breedlove, were former slaves to “Robert W. Burney’s Madison Parish farm which was a battle-staging area during the Civil War for General Ulysses S. Grant and his Union troops”. Walker was an entrepreneur and made her fortune through her self-made hair products. She developed a product to straighten African American women’s hair. She claimed that the invention of her hair product came to her in a dream. Although it was thought she did this to help African American women conform their hair to that of whites, she argued that she created the treatment in order to encourage good treatment and growth in African American women’s hair. She began selling her product door-door. In due time she sophisticated her marketing approach and by 1906 she and her husband Charles Joseph Walker toured the country promoting her hair products. She moved to a mail order operation and established a beauty training school. “In 1910 they moved the central operations to Indianapolis, then the country’s largest manufacturing base, to utilize that city’s access to eight major railway systems.”

Although illiterate when she started her business, Walker took lessons in public speaking, penmanship and developed a striking personality, wearing fine clothing and employing a chauffeur-driven electric carriage. She was to establish a tradition of giving back to the community by contributing to African American orphanages, old-age homes, schools, colleges, and a new civil rights organization, the NAACP. The first self-made millionaires, Walker succeeded despite being an orphan. Madame CJ Walker’s contributions in hair care established her as a prominent role model to woman, still, today, as “one of the most successful business executives in the early half of the twentieth century”.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on women inventors, African American scientists and engineers or our engineering diversity website. For curricular resources, visit the Chemical Engineering Education community site.

Also on this date in history in 1975, Congress passes Metric Conversion Act. Also in 1986, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager complete the first non-stop circumnavigation of the world, nonstop, without refueling their plane, the Voyager. For more information, see the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on metric conversion, airplane design and aeronautics, or Aeronautical Engineering Education.

Today in History – December 17, 1903 – Orville and Wilbur Wright completed the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The Wright Flyer stayed aloft for 12 seconds and covered 120 feet. Over the next few years, the Wright brothers developed more capable airplanes and grabbed the world’s attention in their European and American flights in 1908.

December 17, 2003 marked 100 years of flight, starting with the first successful Kitty Hawk flight. The Wright brothers were in the spotlight, while their sister, Katharine Wright, remained in shadow. Katharine, a teacher who graduated from Oberlin College, was the only one of the three to graduate from college and is reported to have scored very high in algebra exams in high school. She is credited with being the Wright brothers’ business manager and publicist. Perhaps she was one of the first teachers to bring aviation ideas into the classroom?

Aviation, and more recently space travel, continues to inspire awe and inspire. The National Academy of Engineering places the invention of the airplane as one of the top modern mileposts: Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century. Women were there from the beginning; discover the 100 most influential women in aviation and aerospace on this timeline.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on “100 Years of Flight“, as well as on aviation and aeronautic engineering. For related curricula, visit the Aeronautical Engineering Education community.

Today in History – December 6, 1989 – Fourteen women, mostly engineering students, were killed by an anti-feminist gunman at the Ecole Polytechnique of Montreal. The university, located on the north slope of Mont Royal in Montreal,  was the largest engineering school in Canada, with about 5,000 students enrolled at that time. The suicidal gunman was Marc Lepine. He stormed into a classroom and ordered the men to leave and then shot the remaining women in the room. He went on a rampage shooting more women, and some men, in the halls and other rooms before turning the gun on himself. One woman was savagely knifed as well as shot. The gunman had been unsuccessful in a computer programming course he had taken and was later rejected by the Ecole Polytechnique, blaming his failure on affirmative action that favored women for slots that were rightfully his. He left a suicide note in his pockets. Here is an excerpt that was posted in Katherine Ramsland’ article titled “Gendercide: The Montreal Massacre“:

“Because I decided to send Ad Patres [to the fathers] the feminists who have always ruined my life,” he wrote. “For seven years my life has brought me no joy, and being utterly weary of the world, I have decided to stop those shrews dead in their tracks… The feminists always have a talent for enraging me. They want to retain the advantages of being women…while trying to grab those of men… They are so opportunistic that they neglect to profit from the knowledge accumulated by men throughout the ages. They always try to misrepresent them every time they can.”

Feminsits and domestic abuse centers highlighted this as an example of gendercide by men who are threatened by the accomplishments of women. Even those who do not kill, abuse women to control them.

Canada commemorates the Montreal Massacre as part of a the  National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, otherwise known as “December 6th. During this annual event, participants don white ribbons and  honor the victims with fourteen white roses:  Genevieve Bergeron, Helene Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Maryse Laganiere, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michelle Richard, Annie St-Arneault, Annie Turcotte and Barbara Klucznik Widajewicz.

It is with heavy heart that I write this blog; I decided to do so to remind us that not all men and women believe in equal opportunities for women. Although the National Academies recent study -  Beyond Bias and Barriers – concluded that most discrimination of women in STEM disciplines is due to unconscious bias, let us not forget that explicit conscious bias gender discrimination still exists. Lepine’s father was of Algerian Muslim roots and had a history of domestic violence. He came from a tradition that had much different views of the roles of women. In today’s “Flat World” it is imperative to explicitly face these clashes of cultures and make them a part of our public education and ethics policy.

To counter this depressing story, I highlight below some of our blogs on women’s contributions to engineering, computer science and entrepreneurship.

Patricia Galloway, first female president of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), blogs on Elsie Eaves – first female engineer in ASCE to be elected as a full member on March 14, 1927.

Lucy Sanders, CEO of the Center for Women in Information Technology blogs on the unveiling of the ENIAC on February 14, 1946, the world’s first digital electronic computer, as well as on the contributions of women in computing.

Jasmina Vujic, Chair of the Nuclear Engineering Department at the University of California at Berkeley, blogs on Lise Meitner and her groundbreaking publication that first introduced the world to nuclear fission on February 11, 1939.

Chad-Eric Montgommery blogs on two African American women. On March 1, 1864, Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first African American woman to receive a medical degree. Also see the blog on Sara Breedlove Walker, the first self-made millionairess hair product inventions for African American women.

The October 18th blog on the discovery and structure of DNA comments on the pivot work of Rosalind Franklin’s in the development of the understanding the structure of DNA through X-ray crystallographies.

Pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Helen Taussig, was one of the doctors at Johns Hopkins who performed the first open heart surgery on November 29, 1944.

I enjoyed researching the blog for November 13, 1913 – Mary Phelps Jacobs invents modern bra. And also for the one on Dr. Mary Walker, the first female army surgeon to be awarded the Medal of Honor on November 11, 1875.

Check out the Engineering Pathway‘s many educational resources on women in engineering, women in information technology, women inventors and gender equity. One of my favorite resources is FairerScience, with practical advice on how to develop gender equitable classrooms and practices in math, science and engineering. Or visit our Engineering Diversity or our Broadening Participation in Computing community sites.

For a more indepth analysis of the issues associated with gender equity in our faculties and recommended solutions, read our “most commented” resource – the National Academies’ Beyond Bias and Barriers report. My editorial on the report was published in ASEE Prism, November 2006, vol. 16 (3). We’d love to hear your comments and suggestions as well.

Today in History – December 2, 1982- Dr. William C. DeVries carried out a series of five implants in Utah over the next three years using the Jarvik total artificial heart. Although the first patients did not live past a year, further patients received the artificial heart designed by Robert K. Jarvik, MD, as a temporary device while awaiting heart transplants. The unusual openness of this medical experiment allowed doctors and designers to learn how to improve the clinical outcomes in subsequent patients with the Jarvik 7, “a device that is still used today and has the highest success rate of any mechanical heart or assist device in the world.” For more information see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on the Jarvik artificial heart and the human heart and heart transplants.

Readers may want to view our November 29 blog on the first open heart surgery in 1994 that laid the foundation for today’s heart surgery. Working as a team, the Johns Hopkins Hospital’s chief surgeon, Dr. Alfred Blalock (center photo), surgical technician Vivien T. Thomas (portrait, second from right), and pediatric cardiologist Dr. Helen Taussig (right photo) developed a method for improving the flow of oxygen into the blood by connecting one of the heart’s major arteries with another feeding into the lungs.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on biomedical engineering or go to the Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Education Community site.

Also on this date in history in 1957 the first full-scale U.S. nuclear power plant begins operating in Shippingport, Pennsylvania – 15 years to the day after Fermi’s experiment at the University of Chicago. The reactor plant was designed by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in cooperation with the Division of Naval Reactors of the Atomic Energy Commission. The Shippingport nuclear powerplant was retired in 1982. Concerns about public safety, terrorist use of nuclear materials and the Three Mile Island nuclear accident killed the commerical nuclear indutry in the U.S. However, the nuclear option is being reconsidered in light of its lighter environmental impact over fossil fuels for generating electricity. As with all technologies, engineers must work with the public to evaluate the ethical and social consequences of any technological development and deployment. See the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on nuclear energy or visit the Nuclear Engineering Education community site for more information.

Today in History – November 29, 1944 – doctors at Johns Hopkins performed the surgery that laid the foundation for today’s heart surgery, such as coronary bypass surgery. Working as a team, the Johns Hopkins Hospital’s chief surgeon, Dr. Alfred Blalock (left photo), African American surgical technician Vivien T. Thomas (center portrait), and pediatric cardiologist Dr. Helen Taussig (right photo) developed a method for improving the flow of oxygen into the blood by connecting one of the heart’s major arteries with another feeding into the lungs. First used on a young girl with a combination of heart defects that so starved her for oxygen that her skin was literally blue, it became known as the Blue Baby Operation.

All three members of the team continued to make huge contributions to medical research and practice. Alfred Blalock was elected to the National Academy of Science and received the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur, the Passano Award, the Matas Award, and the Albert Lasker Medical Research Award.

Dr. Taussig becamame one of the most influential and pioneering women in medicine, being considered the founder of pediatric cardiology. She has received widespread recognition and honors for her contributions to cardiology, including the French Chevalier Legion d’Honneur, the Italian Feltrinelli Prize, the Peruvian Presidential Medal of Honor, and the United States of America Medal of Freedom.

Vivien Thomas’ achievements became widely recognized as well. He supervised the surgical laboratories at Hopkins for over 35 years, and in 1976 he was appointed instructor in surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In 1976, he was awarded the honorary degree Doctor of Laws, by the Johns Hopkins University.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on biomedical engineering or go to the Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Education community site. Readers may also be interested in our resources on gender equity and African American Engineers and Scientists.

Also on this date in history in 1877, Thomas Edison demonstrates hand-cranked phonograph. See the November 21 blog on Edison’s announcement of his “taking machine” and the contrast with the release of “Toy Story”, the first full-length movie created entirely by computer animation. Or browse the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on Edison and digital music.

Today in History – November 15, 1968 – Yale announces its plans to open its undergraduate programs to female students beginning in 1969. Today, women make up over 50% of Yale’s undergraduate population and there is talk in many private schools and liberal arts colleges – where there is a 60-40% split in favor of women – about implementing “affirmative action” for men in order to keep the population at gender parity. Although women in undergraduate engineering programs are still below 50%, their numbers on average are over 20%. Yet women are still less than 10% of the engineering faculty at Yale and most colleges of engineering across the United States. A recent study of the National Academies titled Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering found unintentional biases were a major contributor to the low number of women on our science and engineering faculties. Women face barriers to hiring and promotion in research universities in many fields of science and engineering — a situation that deprives the United States of an important source of talent as the country faces increasingly stiff global competition in higher education, science and technology, and the marketplace. Eliminating gender bias in universities requires immediate, overarching reform and decisive action by university administrators, professional societies, government agencies, and Congress. The report was motivated by former Harvard President Larry Summers’ speculation that the low numbers of women in science and engineering are because women don’t want to work hard enough and that there may be a biological basis. His discounted discrimination as a tertiary factor. See the Engineering Pathway’s Engineering Diversity site and our resources on gender equity.

Also today in 1864, the first U.S. mines school opens at Columbia University, New York. The School of Mines of Columbia University was the first mining and metallurgy school in the United States, and laid the foundations for the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia, a pattern repreated at a number of early U.S. universities. For more information on mining engineering today, seee our Mineral and Mining Engineering Education community site.

Today in History – November 13, 1913 – Mary Phelps Jacobs invents modern bra. After tiring of barbaric corsets with whaleback bones and steel rods, Mary Phelps Jacobs, a New York socialite, took two silk handkerchiefs and some pink ribbon and fashioned herself the very first backless bra.  She used the natural bias of the silk to provide the elasticity. On November 3, 1914, she was awarded a patent for the “Backless Brassiere”. Later she sold the brassiere patent to the Warner Brothers Corset Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut for $1,500, who is reported to have made $15 million dollars from the bra over the next 30 years. Anne L. Macdonald, author of Feminine Ingenuity: How Women Inventors Changed America, notes that Jacobs was a descendant of inventor Robert Fulton and quotes Jacobs’ autobiography on this: “I believe my ardour for invention springs from his [Fulton's] loins. I can’t say that the brassiere will ever take as grat a place in history as the steamboat, but I did invent it.”

See the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on women inventors and gender equity.

Also on this date in 1971, Mariner 9 becomes the first spaceprobe to orbit another planet.

Today in History – November 11, 1865 – Mary Edward Walker, the first Army female surgeon, was awarded the Medal of Honor for her work during the Civil War. Dr. Mary Walker changed the face of medicine as a physician and as an advocate for women’s rights and healthy cothing for women. As she concluded in 1897, “I am the original new woman…Why, before Lucy Stone, Mrs. Bloomer, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were – before they were, I am. In the early ’40′s, when they began their work in dress reform, I was already wearing pants…I have made it possible for the bicycle girl to wear the abbreviated skirt, and I have prepared the way for the girl in knickerbockers.

Today, women make up over 50% of the medical school students and women students are reaching parity in bioengineering and biomedical engineering as well – yet they are still less than 10% of the medical and engineering faculty. A recent study of the National Academies titled Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering found unintentional biases were a major contributor to the low number of women on our science and engineering faculties. Women face barriers to hiring and promotion in research universities in many fields of science and engineering — a situation that deprives the United States of an important source of talent as the country faces increasingly stiff global competition in higher education, science and technology, and the marketplace. Eliminating gender bias in universities requires immediate, overarching reform and decisive action by university administrators, professional societies, government agencies, and Congress. The report was motivated by former Harvard President Larry Summers’ speculation that the low numbers of women in science and engineering are because women don’t want to work hard enough and that there may be a biological basis. His discounted discrimination as a tertiary factor. See the Engineering Pathway’s Engineering Diversity site and our resources on gender equity.

Also on this date, Milikan introduced cosmic rays in 1925 and the Nobel prize for physics is awarded for diffraction of electrons by crystals in 1937.

Today in History – November 2, 2000 – first crew arrives at the International Space Station. This historic moment arrived when a capsule containing three astronauts – two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut – docked at the International Space Station. The International Space Station is a large, inhabited Earth satellite collaboratively built by 15 nations in space. It orbits Earth at an altitude of about 250 miles (400 kilometers). The orbit extends from 52 degrees north latitude to 52 degrees south latitude.

On October 19, 2007 the International Space Station enjoyed another first when NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson arrived at the International Space Station to begin her tenure as the first woman to command a station mission. On October 30, 2007 another female astronaut commanding the space shuttle Discovery, Pam Melroy, reached the space station, making it the first time two women have led space missions at the same time.

For more news and educational resources in space exploration and aerospace and aeronautical engineering, see the Engineering Pathway’s Aerospace Engineering Education Community site.

Also on this day in history, Designer Howard Hughes performs the maiden (and only) flight of the Spruce Goose in 1947; the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built.