# Hilda Counts

Hilda Counts (16 September 1893 – 17 May 1989) was an American electrical engineer and co-founder of the American Society of Women Engineers and Architects. She was the first woman to earn a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Colorado.

## Biography

Hilda Counts was born in 1893 in Runnels County, Texas, to Sylvania (née) Whisnant and Thomas Peter Counts. She had a younger brother Oakley Ford. She got an associate degree from the University of Colorado before working as a high school mathematics and physics teacher for two years. She then returned to the University where she studied electrical engineering. She graduated in 1919 as the first woman to do so with that degree. Counts went to work in Westinghouse Electric Corporation until deciding to return again to gain a higher degree. However she married Arthur T. Edgecomb (1867–1936) around 1926 and retired for a number of years.
Counts returned to work after a fourteen-year gap and worked in the Rural Electrification Administration in Washington D.C.
She officially retired in 1963 but remained involved in the work until her 80s. Counts died in 1989 age 95.

## Professional organizations

In 1919 when Counts worked with Lou Alta Melton, to create an American Society of Women Engineers and Architects they wrote to all US universities with Engineering departments to find how many women were students. The replies were notable for the number which stated "this university does not have and never expects to have any women engineering students". Despite the great number of negative replies it turned out that there were about 200 women students in engineering courses. So the two women announced the establishment of the association, with support from fellow engineering student Elsie Eaves and a number of women joined in 1919 to 1920.
Long term the association did not last but it did foreshadow the US Society of Women Engineers. Counts remained focused on the creation and maintenance of such an organization and in women's education in engineering. She was involved in the founding of the SWE. Counts was also on the board of the District of Columbia Society of Professional Engineers. The Society of Women Engineers has a scholarship in her name, The Pioneer Scholarship, established in memory of Hilda Counts, Elsie Eaves, and Lou Alta Melton.

## References and sources

* 1 2 3 Hatch, Sybil E. (January 2006). Changing Our World: True Stories of Women Engineers. ASCE Publications. ISBN 978-0-7844-0835-3.
* ↑ "U.S., School Yearbooks, 1880-2012"; School Name: University of Colorado; Year: 1919
* 1 2 Layne, Margaret E. (5 June 2009). Women in Engineering: Pioneers and Trailblazers. ASCE Publications. ISBN 978-0-7844-0980-0.
* ↑ Canel, Annie; Oldenziel, Ruth (8 August 2005). Crossing Boundaries, Building Bridges. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-28680-4.
* ↑ "The Evening Independent from Massillon, Ohio on September 2, 1952 · Page 10". Newspapers.com.
* ↑ "Brutal rejections of female engineers in 1919 still sound modern". Ladders | Business News & Career Advice. Retrieved 2025-03-14.
* ↑ Knupfer, A.; Woyshner, C. (18 March 2008). The Educational Work of Women's Organizations, 1890–1960. Springer. ISBN 978-0-230-61012-5.
* ↑ LaFrance, Adrienne (2017-05-23). "Historic Rejection Letters to Women Engineers". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
* ↑ Bix, A.S. (2013). Girls Coming to Tech!: A History of American Engineering Education for Women. Engineering Studies. MIT Press. p. 38. ISBN 978-0-262-01954-5. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
* ↑ "Brutal rejections of female engineers in 1919 still sound modern". Ladders | Business News & Career Advice. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
* ↑ Anchora of Delta Gamma: Vol. 90, No. 3. Delta Gamma Fraternity. p. 1-PA31. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
* ↑ Weiss, Suzannah. "These Rejection Letters Sent to Female Engineering School Applicants Will Infuriate You". Glamour. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
* ↑ Guest (2017-06-01). "These Rejection Letters to Women Engineers Will Infuriate You". All Together. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
* ↑ "Gals & Guns: Women in American Engineering Pre-World War II". Subway Reads. Archived from the original on 2021-11-30. Retrieved 2021-03-07.
* ↑ "The Star-Democrat from Easton, Maryland on August 29, 1952 · Page 19". Newspapers.com.
* ↑ "U.S. AGENCIES SEEK WOMEN ENGINEERS (Published 1951)". The New York Times. 12 March 1951.
* ↑ Puaca, Laura Micheletti (2 June 2014). Searching for Scientific Womanpower: Technocratic Feminism and the Politics of National Security, 1940-1980. UNC Press Books. ISBN 978-1-4696-1082-5.
* ↑ "Society of Women Engineers Rocky Mountain Section Scholarship - Colorado State University Scholarships". colostate.academicworks.com.