Edith Clarke, 1883-1959

Clarke was a woman who attained many firsts during her lifetime:

first woman to earn an Electrical Engineering graduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
first woman to present a technical paper before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), a predecessor society of the IEEE
first woman to teach at the University of Texas-Austin's engineering department
first woman to be elected as a Fellow of the AIEE

Edith Clarke was born in 1883 in a small rural community in Maryland, during a time when it was almost unheard of for a woman to acquire a college degree. Clarke was orphaned at an early age and received a small inheritance which allowed her to enroll in Vassar College in Poughkeepie, New York. She studied mathematics and astronomy and received an A.B. degree. In 1912 she became a computing assistant to George A. Campbell at AT&T. During her tenure, she learned a great deal about the theory of transmission lines and electric circuits. In 1918 she enrolled at MIT and earned an M.S. in 1919, the first woman to earn an electrical engineering degree from MIT.

Clarke worked at General Electric (GE) from 1919 to her retirement. (She left GE for one year in 1921 to teach at a woman's college in Turkey.) She was recognized by GE as an Engineer in 1922 and became a salaried electrical engineer.

In February 1926, she became the first woman to present a paper at an AIEE meeting, it was later published in the Transactions of the AIEE. She presented her second paper in March 1931.

Clarke retired from GE in 1945 and joined the EE faculty at the University of Texas-Austin in 1947. She taught until 1956 and on her retirement returned to her native Maryland. She died in October 1959 at the age of 76.

Selected Publications:
Circuit Analysis of A-C Power Systems, 1943
Clarke was the author or co-author of nineteen technical papers published between 1923 and 1951.