The Icelandic connection - 01.06.2014, Side 31

Vol. 66 #4
ICELANDIC CONNECTION
173
Elsie and the Hurricane
by Avery Simundsson
When I tell people that I am an
engineer, the response is usually
something along the lines of “Really?
Are there many of you? What’s it like?”
The reason for this is not because they’ve
never heard of engineering or think it’s
a little known, unpopular profession,
but because I am a female. Historically,
the engineering field is a predominately
male profession. In 2011, the percentage
of female undergraduate enrolment in
an engineering field across Canada was
17.7% 1. But once upon a time, these
numbers would have been extraordinary.
Let’s take a few steps back in time to
meet a young women named Elizabeth
Muriel Gregory MacGill, commonly
known as Elsie. Elsie was born in
Vancouver in 1905. Her mother, Helen
MacGill was a suffragist, newspaper
reporter, and the first woman judge in
British Columbia. Her father was a
lawyer. With such strong role models and
encouragement, Elsie gained confidence
to follow a unique goal for a young woman
of her time. In 1927 at the University of
Toronto, she became the first woman
to receive her Electrical Engineering
degree in Canada. Two years later, she
was the first woman to obtain a Master’s
degree in Aeronautical Engineering at
the University of Michigan. She became
a specialist in stress analysis and was
involved in designing the first all-metal
aircraft built in Canada.
In 1938, she held the position of
Chief Engineer at the Canadian Car and
Foundry (CCF) in Fort William, modern
day Thunder Bay. This was an interesting
time for women. With many of the young
men fighting in the war, women were
brought in to the factories to meet the
growing demand for war-time products.
My grandmother, Margret Simundsson,
was one of them. Women featured in the
National Film Board clip called “Rosies of
the North” share their stories of working
in the factory with the men.
“You could see, they just didn’t think
we should be there,” said one. “We were
equal. They didn’t really realize it but we
were equal. We were doing the same jobs.”
“They didn’t really accept it though.
They never accepted that we were equal
I don’t think.”
The women go on to describe how
the men would rush to punch their time
cards before the women at the end of the
day and then beat them to the streetcars,
meaning the men got all the seats while
the women were left to hang on to the
straps, but they did their best to pretend
it didn’t bother them.
One woman describes a man in
particular who regularly showed them his
disapproval of them being there.
“Towards the end, we won him over,”
she chuckles. “We welded his lunch pail
to a piece of steel.”
Regardless of how the men felt, the
women were needed. They performed
riveting, drilling, welding, and almost all
other jobs in the factory. And overseeing
it all was Elsie.
Her very presence exuded the feeling
of authority. Some people describe her