Olive Dennis was an engineer

Engineer

An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...

 whose design innovations changed the nature of railway travel. Born in Thurlow, Pennsylvania, on November 20, 1885, she grew up in Baltimore

Baltimore

Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...

.

Career

She obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Goucher College

Goucher College

Goucher College is a private, co-educational, liberal arts college located in the northern Baltimore suburb of Towson in unincorporated Baltimore County, Maryland, on a 287 acre campus. The school has approximately 1,475 undergraduate students studying in 31 majors and six interdisciplinary...

 in 1908, and a Masters degree in mathematics from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 the following year. After teaching at Wisconsin, she decided to study civil engineering

Civil engineering

Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...

 and studied at Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

. In 1920, she became only the second woman to obtain a Civil Engineering degree from Cornell. She was hired that year as a draftsman by the B & O Railroad to design bridges. The following year, the President of the railroad observed that, since half of the railway's passengers were women, the task of engineering upgrades in service would best be handled by a female engineer. Dennis became the first "service engineer" when the B. & O. created the position. Engineering historian Kurt H. Debus

Kurt H. Debus

Kurt Heinrich Debus was a German V-2 rocket scientist during World War II who, after being brought to the United States under Operation Paperclip, became the first director of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in 1962. Debus' U.S...

 described her as the first service engineer in America. She was also the first female member of the American Railway Engineering Association.

Innovations

Among the innovations that Ms. Dennis introduced on passenger trains were seats that could partially recline; stain-resistant upholstery in passenger cars; larger dressing rooms for women, supplied with free paper towels, liquid soap and drinking cups; ceiling lights that could be dimmed at night; individual window vents (which she patented) to allow passengers to bring in fresh air while trapping dust; and, later, air conditioned

Air conditioning

An air conditioner is a home appliance, system, or mechanism designed to dehumidify and extract heat from an area. The cooling is done using a simple refrigeration cycle...

 compartments. Other rail carriers followed suit in the years that followed, and buses and airlines in turn had to upgrade their level of comfort in order to compete with the railroads.

Woman's viewpoint

"No matter how successful a business may seem to be," she said, "it can gain even greater success if it gives consideration to the woman's viewpoint." Although the changes were not enough to save the passenger rail industry in America, Ms. Dennis's unique perspective as a traveling woman with training as a technical engineer influenced the travel industry nationwide.

Sources

• Current Biography 1941 yearbook, pp. 220–221
• Sybil E. Hatch, Changing Our World: True Stories of Women Engineers (ASCE Publications, 2006)
• Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie, ed., The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science (Taylor & Francis, 2000)