In the spring of 1894, there occurred in rural mid-America a most fascinating and historic event. Two bright, pioneering Iowa farm girls earned civil engineering degrees from the same institution of higher learning at the identical time. Elmina (Figure 1), the older of the two, received a master’s degree (MSCE), while her sister Alda (Figure 2) was awarded a bachelor’s degree (BSCE), both from Iowa State University (ISU).
Fig. 1. Elmina Tessa Wilson circa 1900 (Photo courtesy of Iowa State University Library Special Collections Department)
Fig. 2. Passport photo of Alda Heston Wilson in 1924 (Photo courtesy of U.S. Passport Department)
Elmina had previously been the first woman to receive a civil engineering degree from ISU in 1892. Although she was not the first woman to receive a formal civil engineering degree from an American university—that honor belongs to -old Elizabeth Bragg (see sidebar)—she was the first to earn a master’s in the field and the first to become a full-time college professor of civil engineering. (Some would argue that since Wilson’s degree was for a program and Bragg’s for something less, Elmina should be hailed as the nation’s first woman to receive a full-fledged civil engineering diploma.)
In the long run, though, what really set the Wilson sisters apart was that they were the first women to actually take up civil engineering as their life’s work. Bragg, for instance, never spent time as an engineer for her livelihood.
Although Elmina passed away early, only old, she and Alda left a rich heritage of inspiration and determination for generations of other young women to emulate, not only in the structural and civil engineering field but in other scientific fields as well. In addition to encouraging women to obtain college educations and advanced degrees, they were worthy civic and community activists dedicated to advancing women’s rights and suffrage.
Elizabeth Bragg (1858–1929), the middle child of the nine children of Robert and Mary (Philbrook) Bragg, was raised among wealth, comfort, and luxury. Her father was a prominent San Francisco ship builder, and her family was listed in the city’s “blue book” of elites. Three of her brothers went into the shipbuilding business while Elizabeth and her sisters earned college degrees in teaching, science, or engineering. Elizabeth’s senior thesis was entitled “A Solution of a Peculiar Problem of Surveying.” After receiving her degree in civil engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1876, she remained at home until her marriage in 1888 to George Cumming, a civil engineer with the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. They had four sons and were active socially, but no records show that she ever practiced engineering.
Their determined efforts were instrumental in the passage in 1920 of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote.
The two youngest children of John C. and Olive (Eaton) Wilson, the sisters were born in Harper (South English), Keokuk, Iowa, almost exactly apart, Elmina on September 29, 1870, and Alda on September 20, 1873. They had an older brother, Warren, and three older sisters, Fannie, Olive May, and Anna. Their father, John, a successful farmer, was born in Pennsylvania to Scottish immigrants, while their mother was reared in Ohio by Scottish immigrants who passed on early in her life.
After marrying, John and Olive settled in Iowa where all of their children were born. Migrating to Iowa along with the couple were John’s parents, John F. and Jane (McMillan) Wilson, who lived nearby and were frequent visitors to the family homestead, attending many significant family functions. Both generations of Wilsons were great believers in the value of higher education and encouragers of getting as much of it as possible. Particularly supportive along these lines was Grandmother Jane. When she died suddenly in 1880, it greatly affected the whole family, especially the younger girls.
Outside of family activities, there were several newsworthy regional events that might have been discussion topics or catalysts in the Wilson sisters’ consideration of engineering as a field to pursue. They included the completion of the historic St. Louis Bridge in 1874 and of Chicago’s first skyscraper, the Home Insurance Building, in 1885, both world record holders. Another major event was the selection of Chicago as the site for the 1893 World’s Fair, featuring the very latest in architectural design work and the introduction of the amazing -tall Ferris wheel, the creation of the daring and mysterious American civil engineer George Ferris (1859–1896).
In a New York Sun article (Jan. 8, 1905), Elmina was straightforward about why she decided to become an engineer, saying that it was initially because of her love for mathematics and her enjoyment of surveying and, only much later, her fascination with significant engineering works like skyscrapers, big wheels, bridges, and towers. In any case, it was early on that both Elmina and Alda committed to pursuing an education in engineering.
About her early surveying experiences, Elmina told the Sun reporter, “with a twinkle in her eyes,” that when she was doing “railway field work, walking the ties for miles, carrying transit and chain, whenever a fence crossed the path of the surveying party of which I was a member, the men went over it, but, of course, I went under.” From the very beginning, she was not intimidated working in a field typically reserved for men only.
On September 27, 1887, while Elmina and Alda were still in their mid-teens, their brother Warren married Jennie Funk, the eventful occasion taking place in their hometown in Keokuk County. It was the first marriage of the Wilson siblings. Less than 2 years later, on August 16, 1889, as Elmina was preparing for her sophomore year at college, Warren and Jennie had their first child, Velda Jane, making the Wilson sisters aunts for the first but not last time.
Shortly after Elmina graduated from ISU, two more of her and Alda’s siblings married, Olive to Charles Curtiss on February 15, 1893, and Anna to Alvin Reynolds on August 22, 1893. Olive met Curtiss while she was a student and he was an instructor in the school of agriculture at ISU. He was on track to rise to the rank of dean of the college in short order.
On June 2, 1898, Elmina and Alda’s grandfather, John F. Wilson, died in Keokuk. As was family tradition, he left the bulk of his holdings to his closest son, Elmina and Alda’s father. They were in their mid-20s at the time, just getting well established in their careers.
During their days at ISU, Elmina and Alda worked summers for architectural and engineering companies in Chicago. Once receiving their bachelor’s degrees, both did advance study at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Elmina additionally took advanced engineering courses at Cornell University, the alma mater of her mentor and the dean of engineering at ISU, the distinguished and progressive Anson Marston (1864–1949). A significant historic project on which Elmina collaborated with Marston was the -tall Ames, Iowa, Water Tower (Figures 3 and 4), the first raised, steel water tower built west of the Mississippi. Today it is listed on the National Register of Historical Places.
Fig. 3. Marston Water Tower, Ames, Iowa (Photo courtesy of David Weingardt)
Fig. 4. Intricate tank framework supporting Marston Tower, Ames, Iowa (Photo courtesy of David Weingardt)
After earning her master’s degree, Elmina remained at ISU as an engineering instructor, advancing to associate professor. At one time she and Marston were the only permanent members on the engineering faculty. During her with ISU, Wilson continued to work with Chicago design firms during summer breaks. Two with whom she spent considerable time were the Jennett Bridge and Iron Company and Patton and Miller, architects, prolific designers of Carnegie libraries around the country.
The -younger Alda, increasingly leaning toward doing architecture after receiving her civil engineering diploma, mostly associated with architectural design firms, working in Chicago, Kansas City, and Ames. In 1903, she resigned her position with the firm she was with and made plans, with Elmina and two cousins, also single women, to “see the world.”
In 1903 and 1904, Elmina took a year’s sabbatical from her duties at ISU so she and Alda could travel to Europe to study noteworthy architecture and engineering works, much of their travel by bicycle. (It was the first of two such trips Elmina would make, but only one of numerous European sojourns Alda would take.) Upon their return to the United States, the sisters faced defining decisions regarding their future.
Marston continued to hope that Elmina would return to ISU:
“I am still reluctant to yield to the idea of your not being with us next year. I would not for a moment insist on your coming back against your wish and you must decide the matter from the standpoint of what you think to be best for yourself. I can assure you that myself and the other people here would very much like to have you with us. We often think and speak of you and the department misses you greatly.” (Letter from Marston to Wilson, May 21, 1904)
In the end, Elmina decided to remain in New York City, resign from the faculty at Ames, and go into the consulting engineering business on the East Coast. Alda concurred with the decision, and while her sister went with an engineering company, she found a satisfying design position with a leading local architectural firm.
Elmina’s first job in New York was with the James E. Brooks Company, consulting engineers. Brooks and his partners H. P. Lancaster and A. D. Morris had originally incorporated their firm to manufacture bridge and structural work but had expanded into doing complete services for all types of complex structures. On her first assignment with Brooks, Wilson was sent to Essex Structural Steel Works at Bloomfield, New Jersey, where she was assigned to “shop details” for several weeks. She then returned to work full-time in the firm’s New York offices.
Upon her return to New York, Elmina was interviewed by the New York Sun (“Miss Wilson, Civil Engineer,” Jan. 8, 1905). Asked to describe what she was doing, Wilson said, “I can’t think of any name for it that would convey an intelligent idea to an outsider. We call it getting out the steel for a powerhouse for a New Orleans railway company. I make drawings for the steel part of the structure and then make my estimates as to the number of thousand pounds it will take for each part.”
The Sun reporter was favorably taken by the ambiance of Elmina and Alda’s living quarters:
“Miss Wilson and her sister keep bachelor hall and prove that women in business can be excellent housekeepers. Their parlors are full of pretty water color and pencil sketches of sights and scenes abroad, their own work or that of the artists they met in their travels.”
At the time, the Wilsons were residing at 452 West 149th Street, north of Manhattan and Central Park, a few blocks east of Broadway and the Hudson River.
In 1907, Elmina joined Purdy and Henderson (P&H), then the country’s leading engineering designer of skyscrapers. When she arrived at P&H, Elmina may or may not have encountered another pioneering woman engineer, the first to earn a degree in civil engineering from the University of Michigan (BSCE 1895), Marian Sarah Parker. Both reportedly worked on various parts of the historic Flatiron Building in midtown Manhattan (Figure 5). Their time together at P&H, however, would have been brief since Parker returned to Michigan in the early 1900s, where she married and became Mrs. Marian (Parker) Madgwick.
Fig. 5. Flatiron Building, New York (Photo courtesy of Evelyn Weingardt)
After Elmina had been with P&H for less than a year, in April 1908, Elmina and Alda’s mother Olive died, requiring them to travel back to Iowa for the funeral and giving them the opportunity to spend time with childhood friends and relatives and be updated on what their siblings, nieces, and nephews were doing. Plus, it was a time to apprise people back home of their ongoing travel adventures, the things they were doing, the engineering and architectural projects they were working on, and their future work prospects.
Of the many notable projects under design while Elmina was at P&H were the Metropolitan Life Tower (Figure 6), the tallest building in the world from 1909 to 1913; the Whitehall Annex, the biggest office building in New York at the time of its completion; and the Manhattan Municipal Complex (Figure 7). Among the largest government buildings in the world, the complex is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Fig. 6. Metropolitan Life Tower, New York (Photo courtesy of Evelyn Weingardt)
Fig. 7. Manhattan Municipal Complex, New York (Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons/OptimumPx)
In 1912, Elmina and Alda’s father John passed away, and Elmina went to work as a structural engineer for John S. Browne, consulting engineers, while Alda remained engaged with various prominent New York architectural firms and did freelance architectural work.
In 1916, Elmina and Alda, as a team, prepared the architectural and engineering drawings for the Teachers Cottage or Helmich House (Figure 8) at the Arrowmont Arts and Crafts School in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. One of the oldest structures on campus, the building is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Wilsons donated their drawings and specifications for the cottage to the Pi Beta Phi fraternity. Both had been active members of Pi Beta Phi since their ISU days—as were their older sisters Fannie and Olive (Mrs. Charles Curtiss)—and remained so their whole lives. Elmina served as president of the fraternity’s New York City alumnae club in 1911 and was among those most supportive of Pi Beta Phi founding the Gatlinburg school in the mid-1910s.
Fig. 8. Arrowmont Teachers Cottage, Gatlinburg, Tennessee (Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons/Stansberry)
In addition to continuing to make their mark in the engineering construction world, the Wilsons increased their involvement in leading groups on behalf of women’s rights. Elmina served as president of the Woman Suffrage Club of the 23rd Assembly District, Manhattan Borough, where she and Alda easily intermingled with the prominent national leaders and supporters of the women’s suffrage movement—Carrie Chapman Catt, Susan B. Anthony, and Eleanor Roosevelt among them.
Catt, who took over as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) right after Anthony, was from Iowa. After the passage of the 19th Amendment, during which time she presided over NAWSA, Catt founded the League of Women Voters. Because of their mutual ties all the way back to Iowa and Elmina’s and Alba’s suffrage movement contributions, a strong friendship eventually developed between Catt and the Wilsons.
In addition to being ardent workers and enthusiastic crusaders for the national suffrage movement, the Wilsons were also long-time members of local women’s rights groups like the College Equal Suffrage League, Woman Suffrage Party, and Woman’s Political Union, as well as numerous other civic groups beginning with their college days. The main one was the Pi Beta Phi fraternity. Another was the Phileleutheroi Literary Society, a collegiate debate team formed at ISU in 1890, of which Elmina was a charter member. Alda was also a member of the group, which attracted not only elocutionists and orators but writers, editors, poets, actors, and musicians—anyone interested in being heard. The Wilsons were also officers in various campus engineering groups and with student government bodies.
For recreation, both sisters enjoyed travel, sketching and painting, tennis, and horseback riding. Elmina additionally liked golf. Even though the Alda was the taller by several inches, Elmina was always the more aggressive and bold personality of the two, career and hobby wise. When she was a youngster, Elmina had run away from home. For this adventure, family members and others always called her “Runaway in High Life” Elmina.
Of the two, Elmina was also the more prolific writer, producing numerous articles and papers dealing with the modernization of rural home designs and improvement of sanitation conditions on farms. Her most widely distributed publication along these lines was Modern Conveniences for the Farm Home (U.S. Department of Agriculture Bulletin No. 270, 1906).
A popular article mutually produced by Elmina and Alda was “Architecture as a Profession for Women” (The Arrow of Pi Beta Phi, Jan. 1919), in which they encouraged young ladies not to be hesitant about becoming architects or engineers. They were reflective in the piece, writing,
“Even though disagreeable incidents such as running up against policies like ‘neither minorities or women will be considered for certain technical positions’ in certain offices are likely to occur, we all know that a stone much knocked about gets its sharp angles worn off and besides they are more than offset by the unselfish willingness of many to lend a helping hand. There is no door at which the hand of woman has knocked for admission into a new field of toil but there have been found on the other side the hands of strong and generous men eager to turn it for her, almost before she knocks. So her standing will depend greatly upon herself; upon her ability to concentrate her thoughts on the subject at hand, and to gather up afresh the products of the classic past and mold them into something specifically modern; upon her devotion, tact, ingenuity and self-sacrifice, the qualities required of her sisters in whatever occupation they follow.”
In the introduction to The Arrow article, which appeared shortly after Elmina had departed this world, editor Sarah Pomeroy-Rugg wrote,
“In spite of the fact that they [Elmina and Alda Wilson] are pioneers in a profession which has by common consent been considered the province of men for centuries, these two women are versatile and, above all, essentially feminine, womanly women, well versed in housewifely arts as all who have ever enjoyed the hospitality of their charming home can testify.”
On June 2, 1918, 2 years before the 19th Amendment, on which she had invested so much of her time, actually became law, Elmina passed away, a few months shy of her 48th birthday, after an extended illness. She, like Alda, was unmarried and had no children but left behind for all time a legacy of great promise.
After Elmina’s death, Alda left New York and returned to Iowa, residing for several years with the family of her older sister Olive, whose husband Charles Curtiss was by then the highly respected dean of ISU’s School of Agriculture. While in Ames, Alda continued her freelance architectural work while working for the Iowa Department of Transportation (IDOT) as superintendent of its Department of Women Drafters. For some time after World War I, IDOT had difficulty in securing and retaining qualified men in its drafting department, so on May 31, 1918, the Iowa State Highway Commission established a drafting department composed of women:
“To provide a trained force of draftswomen, a class was organized in which was enrolled about 20 young women, most of whom had some training in mechanical drawing. A competent instructor was secured to develop this class, and within a few weeks, some of the members were able to begin tracing plans prepared by regular draftsmen for actual use. Under the direction of a competent woman superintendent [Alda Wilson], the department has shown great promise and is now retained as part of the present organization.” (Report of the State Highway Commission, Ames, Iowa, Dec. 1918)
While in Ames, Alda became even better friends with Carrie Catt, increasingly traveling with her to many of her meetings on behalf of the women’ suffrage movement. When Catt moved her operations back to New York full-time, Wilson joined her there, reducing her private architectural work to a minimum to allow for it. By the time Catt died in 1947, Wilson was essentially in charge, running much of her operation.
When Alda died on July 25, 1960, at age 87, she was the executive secretary and executor of Catt’s estate in control of Catt’s extensive women’s rights and suffrage movement papers, which Wilson donated to the Library of Congress.
Biographies
Richard G. Weingardt, chairman of the board of Richard Weingardt Consultants, Inc., Denver, Colorado, has been a practicing structural engineer for . The firm he founded in 1966 has completed 4,700 major projects worldwide, including numerous design award winners. He is an author and motivational speaker on engineering, business, leadership, and creativity. He can be reached by e-mail at:[email protected].
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.
LM.1943-5630.0000082/asset/187828ce-6693-42ba-a6fa-8869221ca72e/assets/images/large/1.jpg)
LM.1943-5630.0000082/asset/471e7554-005a-40f1-a7b3-16b92efee184/assets/images/large/2.jpg)
LM.1943-5630.0000082/asset/cc868cb7-f090-4b91-a0cb-8051908575d0/assets/images/large/3.jpg)
LM.1943-5630.0000082/asset/64463b4f-5d6c-48b2-9046-f7fd1e29c4c6/assets/images/large/4.jpg)
LM.1943-5630.0000082/asset/08ed4988-46d9-46c8-9486-718375eb2750/assets/images/large/5.jpg)
LM.1943-5630.0000082/asset/b01404e9-499f-4925-b84e-9185bc441bc0/assets/images/large/6.jpg)
LM.1943-5630.0000082/asset/f6c1116b-d5d2-4a8e-b112-340640932f84/assets/images/large/7.jpg)
LM.1943-5630.0000082/asset/522c9105-0af7-46dc-8956-837c868b2bfb/assets/images/large/8.jpg)
