Nora Stanton Blatch Barney

Nora Stanton Barney ( Blatch; September 30, 1883 – January 18, 1971) was an English-born American civil engineer, and suffragist. Barney was among the first women to graduate with an engineering degree in United States. Given an ultimatum to either stay a wife or practice engineering she chose engineering. She was the granddaughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Early life She was born Nora Stanton Blatch in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, in 1883 to William Blatch and Harriot Eaton Stanton, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She studied Latin and mathematics at the Horace Mann School in New York, beginning in 1897, returning to England in the summers. The family moved to the United States in 1902. Nora attended Cornell University, graduating in 1905 with a degree in civil engineering. She was Cornell University's first female engineering graduate. In the same year, she was the first woman admitted (accepted as a junior member) of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). She also began work for the New York City Board of Water Supply and for the American Bridge Company in 1905–06. Following the examples set by her mother and grandmother, Nora also became active in the growing women's suffrage movement. She was the first female member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, where she was allowed to be a junior member only and denied advancement to associate member in 1916 solely because of her gender. At the time, women were only admitted as junior members. In 1916, she sued the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) for refusing to admit her as a full member, even though she met all requirements. Blatch lost, and no woman became a full ASCE member for a decade. In 2015, she was posthumously advanced to ASCE Fellow status. Marriage to Lee de Forest