“There is no demand for women engineers . . . but there’s always demand for anyone who can do a good piece of work.”

Edith Clarke was born in Howard County, MD on Feb. 10^th, 1883. Orphaned as a kid, she used an inheritance to study math and astronomy at Vassar College. Clarke worked as a math teacher for 3 years before deciding to study engineering at UW–Madison then Columbia University while working various computer jobs. She eventually earned an MS in electrical engineering from MIT in 1919 and worked as a computer supervisor at General Electric. In 1921, Clarke left to teach at Constantinople Women’s College as she would not be promoted due to her gender at GE. In 1922, GE would offer Clarke an electrical engineering position and she would become the 1^st woman electrical engineer in the U.S. Throughout her career, Clarke would write papers and books on electric line stability. She would end her career as the 1^st woman electrical engineer professor at UT-Austin.