duke's first women engineers
By Catherine B. Farmer
Marie Foote Reel enrolled in the Woman’s College in 1943 hoping to become a teacher.[1] Despite opposition from administrators, faculty and male students, she decided to transfer to the College of Engineering, where she excelled, graduating magna cum laude.[2] Her contemporary, Muriel Theodorsen Williams, faced similar obstacles.[3] After graduation, Williams praised Duke for convincing us “and consequently other people at Duke that women in engineering are not undesirable, inept intruders in a traditionally all-male field; but, rather, that we are able co-workers who can carry our own weight and sometimes even excel in this field of untold importance to humanity.”[4]
[1]. Chunn, Brenda, "Duke's First Women Engineers Remembered," DukEngineer, vol. 49, no. 1, Fall 1986, p. 29, Duke University Libraries, contentdm.lib.duke.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15957coll16/id/6761/rec/2.
[2]. Ibid.
[3]. Cochrane, Dorothy, "Meet the Curtiss - Wright Aeronautical Engineering Cadettes," Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Archives, edited by Aeronautics Department, Smithsonian Institution, March 6, 2013, airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/meet-curtiss-wright-aeronautical-engineering-cadettes.
[4]. Ibid.
[2]. Ibid.
[3]. Cochrane, Dorothy, "Meet the Curtiss - Wright Aeronautical Engineering Cadettes," Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Archives, edited by Aeronautics Department, Smithsonian Institution, March 6, 2013, airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/meet-curtiss-wright-aeronautical-engineering-cadettes.
[4]. Ibid.
