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IET & WES make historical journal archive available digitally

The Institution of Engineering and Technology and the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) have digitally published The Woman Engineer (TWE), providing online access to 18 volumes from 1919 to 2014 for the first time.

The TWE journal, which contains a wealth of information about women in engineering, was first published by the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) in 1919. It contains details of individual women in engineering, such as noteworthy aviator Amy Johnson but also highlights those that have been forgotten or are little known amongst the public such as motor design engineer Gertrude Lilian Entwisle, says the publisher.

It gives insights into social history, employment issues, gender studies, innovation, and many other topics relevant to engineering in the UK since World War I. The early journals also contain technical papers by women engineers. The digitisation enables researchers to access the journal remotely and search the full text of every journal.

Anne Locker, Library and Archives manager at the IET, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to use contemporary accounts of women working across all engineering disciplines for social history and technical research.”

The IET also hosted a women in engineering Wikithon on Tuesday 11 October at Savoy Place in London. This project aims to increase the visibility of female engineering history by adding biographies of notable past and present women working in engineering to Wikipedia. The event was also an opportunity to bring out some of the stories documented in the newly digitised version of TWE.

The TWE was digitised with support from donors including the Royal Academy of Engineering and a legacy from Anne Royle.

To view the digitised TWE, click here.