The National Society of Professional Engineers has been sponsoring Engineers Week every February sin

The National Society of Professional Engineers has been sponsoring Engineers Week every February since 1951 as a means of calling attention to engineers’ contributions to society and advocating for the importance of education in math, science, and technical skills.

Today’s Engineers Week theme is Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, so we’re sharing this December 1949 photograph of Florence Naum (1922-2006) testing a generator regular quality control machine at the Ford Motor Company’s plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The device tested regulators for 1950 Fords under simulated road conditions.

Naum was a resident of Farmington, Michigan. She began her career at Ford as a stock handler in 1939 after graduating high school and, by 1949, was the only woman electrical technician at the company and one of only two women enrolled at the University of Detroit in pursuit of an engineering degree. She eventually earned an electrical engineering degree from the University of Michigan and later became the first female electrical engineer employed at the company.

This photograph is part of Hagley Library’s collection of Chamber of Commerce of the United States photographs and audiovisual materials, Series II. Nation’s Business photographs (Accession 1993.230.II). To view more items from this collection online, visit its page in our Digital Archive by clicking here.