Petticoats & Sliderules Lyrics
Petticoats & Sliderules
Petticoats and SlideRules (Elizabeth Rudolph - 2021) is a piece for 2 voices, violin, and cello inspired by and based on a 2003 interview in the archives of the Society of Women Engineers, an organization that Lois Graham helped to found. It is structured as a conversation across the decades between Lois, who was the first American woman to earn a PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 1956, and Elisabeth Woodbridge (Morris), who was a suffragette and one of the first women ever to earn a PhD at Yale in 1908. The text for the soprano is excerpted from Woodbridge’s writing in 1923, not long after women in the USA won the right to vote. The title of the piece was an imaginative early name suggestion when they were founding the Society of Women Engineers. For those of us still working toward true gender equity, I hope this piece serves to illustrate both how far we’ve come in the past century and how far we have yet to go.
Petticoats and SlideRules (Elizabeth Rudolph - 2021) is a piece for 2 voices, violin, and cello inspired by and based on a 2003 interview in the archives of the Society of Women Engineers, an organization that Lois Graham helped to found. It is structured as a conversation across the decades between Lois, who was the first American woman to earn a PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 1956, and Elisabeth Woodbridge (Morris), who was a suffragette and one of the first women ever to earn a PhD at Yale in 1908. The text for the soprano is excerpted from Woodbridge’s writing in 1923, not long after women in the USA won the right to vote. The title of the piece was an imaginative early name suggestion when they were founding the Society of Women Engineers. For those of us still working toward true gender equity, I hope this piece serves to illustrate both how far we’ve come in the past century and how far we have yet to go.
|
Lois Graham:
Molly Burke - Mezzo I was the boy in the family, Until my brother was born, I was a tomboy, there’s no question about it. Asked for a tool set at Christmas. I sort of had these tendencies. I thought flying would be just wonderful. How does a woman fly? Stewardesses had to be under five-foot-three and 125 pounds. I outgrew that career. I was very good at math, physics, and the sciences. My father worked for RPI. The children of employees attended for free. But no women, until the summer of 42. I took Engineering Graphics. I am the world’s worst draftsman. It was an experience I had not had before, to be close to failure. My father got a phone call. “They have decided to accept women into RPI. Do you want to go?” So I went to RPI. The president’s wife heard I studied Mechanical Engineering. Expectation... I was the only girl taking Mechanical Engineering. I was told when I enrolled the future of women at RPI depended on my performance, which is quite a bit of pressure. We graduated in ‘45, the first two women. I was twenty years old. The war gave me my opportunity. If there had been no war, I would not have been allowed. But still, still… no way. “It wouldn’t bother me any!” But the higher-ups didn’t want a woman. But, Carrier was fair. I walked through the manufacturing floor. Could not possibly nowadays. Don’t know how I did it. The men deliberately dropped things right next to me. I never jumped. Men waiting for my shock. I never jumped. Could not do it now. Expectations… (considerable discouragement) (different conditions) Take the drawing to the guy. I was sent down. When I am around, Men swearing- do they or don’t they? I was the messenger, normally the foreman would cuss. He ignored me. I followed him for an hour. Finally “I’ll have it for you tomorrow.” I got instant results. The usual thing, the engineers meet with the designers. The head of design would not allow me in the meetings. I briefed a colleague; I couldn’t go in. After a year and a half, back to school. I wrote to MIT. Everybody would like to go to MIT. They wanted to know every section of every textbook I had ever used after a year and a half. Impossible. Goodbye to MIT. I wrote to CalTech. A postcard. A form reply crossed out. Simply handwritten, I should have saved it. Expectancy... IIT in Chicago accepted me. That’s how I ended up in Chicago. Stacks the cards for the whole game. I was “the first woman” a lot of times. It was good publicity. To get young women interested in Engineering. But Women will find a niche when they have education. Education We can solve the problem. We will solve the problem. We can do anything. |
Elizabeth Woodbridge (Morris):
Angela Born - Soprano Expectation... Expectation... It ought to be noted women are under different conditions, Expectation... Expectation... How does a woman fly? Expectation... any likeness between men and women exists in spite of considerable discouragement. Expectation... Expectation... Expectation... “Oh good! You can come fix my plumbing.” Expectation... Expectation... the newsboy knows, whatever his goal, his status as a newsboy does not throw him out of the race. Expectation… He knows the world of men whose standards matter think of him with the attitude of expectancy. The war gave women an opportunity. “We can’t pay you what we’d pay a man, but you can make it up by working overtime” “We start our new engineers in the field. It is a pretty dirty job.” It ought to be noted women are under different conditions, any likeness between women and men must exist in spite of considerable discouragement. he said, Women are under different conditions “We do not accept women.” The attitude of expectancy. It is this which has been lacking to girls. The attitude of expectancy. It has been assumed that she has it not in her. The attitude of expectancy makes more difference than any material things and will be last to change. Expectation...Dismissal of feminine ability, largely unconscious, implied rather than expressed, begins at birth. Dismissal begins at birth. Stacks the cards for the whole game. Education... Education... Women will find a niche Education... We can solve the problem. We will solve the problem. We can do anything. |