Shattering Myths and Barriers: Women Engineers and

Scientists at Marshall Space Flight Center: 1960-1975

Tracy McMahan
6/4/2012




McMahan 1


The integration of women into the workforce from 1960 to 1975 involved more
than legislation and ensuring that employers enforced laws by hiring and promoting
women and eliminating offensive work environments. Statistics, interviews, and studies
have shown that women scientists or engineers struggled even harder than women in
other professions because men dominated these fields. These women not only had to
shatter societal myths regarding the ability of women to be successful scientists and
engineers but also myths regarding femininity and work.
1

In the 1960s, barriers began to crumble under the weight of national needs for
scientists and engineers. The Cold War competition for technical might and power
escalated demand for scientists and engineers and federal spending on defense and
aerospace research. When President Dwight D. Eisenhower formed the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958, the space agency became
America's Cold War answer to Soviet successes in space. In July 1960, President
Eisenhower transferred 4,670 employees and $100 million worth of facilities from the
Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) at Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Alabama
to form the Marshall Space Flight Center (hereafter to be called MSFC or Marshall). The
experiences of women at MSFC from 1960 to 1975 demonstrated how opportunities for
women scientists and engineers evolved and how gender influenced women working in
male-dominated fields. Internal and external pressures led to MSFC hiring and promoting
more women scientists and engineers and creating a more gender-neutral work climate.

1
Historian Margaret Rossiter conducted thorough research in the field and studied corporations and federal
agencies, such as NASA. She and other historians presented solid evidence that some scientific fields have
proved to be more male-dominant than others, with engineering remaining one of the most male-dominated
fields. Margaret W. Rossiter, "Which Science? Which Women?" Osiris, 2nd series, Women, Gender and
Science: New Directions 12, (1997): 169-185.

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In the 1970s, equal opportunity legislation boosted women's employment and
advancement at Marshall. However, changing a male-dominated workplace emboldened
with a sense of national purpose and heroic romanticism, such as the young NASA,
proved to be difficult.
2
Interviews with MSFC women scientists and engineers
demonstrated that they often determined their own fates by changing male perceptions of
women in the workplace. A chronological analysis revealed workplace evolution over
time:
1. 1945-1960: Gender issues defined by the post-World War II/Cold War
environment acted as the foundation for Marshall's early work climate.
2. 1960-1967: The Cold War race to the Moon and Marshall's critical role in
building the Saturn rockets pervaded the MSFC culture. Persistent women
and supportive male managers broke down barriers and shattered
gender myths.
3. 1968-1975: Legislation, equal-opportunity programs, and the feminist
movement accelerated employment of women. However, public and
political support for space exploration decreased resulting in reduced
MSFC funding and requiring reductions-in-force, or RIFs.


2
Historian Mark Byrnes traced NASA's image over time and examined how societal influences and
American and NASA leadership led nationalism and romanticism to dominate the 1960s space race, while
pragmatism became the dominant image of the Space Shuttle era in the 1970s. Byrnes asserted NASA
altered its image for maximum political support. Mark Byrnes, Politics and Space: Image Making by NASA
(Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1994), 1-10. Byrnes quoted Marshall Center Director Wernher von Braun
since he was influential in obtaining support for the Mercury and Apollo programs during the Cold War. In
their history of MSFC, historians Andrew Dunar and Stephen Waring described changes in the culture
over time and showed how the space race transformed Huntsville, Alabama. Andrew J. Dunar and Stephen
P. Waring, Power to Explore: A History of Marshall Space Flight Center, 1960-1990, NASA SP-4313
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1999).


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Gender and the Post-World War II and Cold War Environment
Societal attitudes toward women and work in the 1940s and 1950s underpinned
attitudes of and toward women scientists and engineers. Women served as pilots during
World War II, and Rosie the Riveters across American performed traditionally male jobs.
When men returned home from war, most Americans expected women just to return
home, especially if they were married. If they were not married, most employers expected
women to work awhile and then leave their jobs when they got married.
3

To most Americans, women scientists and engineers seemed the exception, not
the rule.
4
"In the 1950s, wives of respectable men did not work," wrote Donna Shirley, a
NASA engineer.
5
In 1996, Shirley became one of the first women to head a NASA
program as manager of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL) managed by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in
Pasadena. Shirley described herself as a "smart, mouthy tomboy in a 2,500-person town
where the ideal of womanhood carried with it a lot of chiffon and mascara."
6
The eleven-
year-old Shirley flipped through Collier's magazines and discovered rocket pioneer
Wernher von Braun's 1950s-era articles about humans exploring Mars.
7

Von Braun's visions motivated Carolyn Griner to dream of becoming an engineer.
Her mother also stayed at home with her children but told Griner she could achieve

3
Michael B. Katz, Mark J. Stern and Jamie J. Fader, "Women and the Paradox of Economic Inequality in
the Twentieth-Century," Journal of Social History 39, no. 1 (Fall 2005): 70.
4
Rossiter concluded so few women were engineers that they held "pioneer status" before 1970. Rossiter,
Which Science? Which Women?, 170. Historian Monique Frize found until the late nineteenth century, the
voices against educating women proved louder than voices supporting it. Monique Frize, The Bold and The
Brave: A History of Women in Science and Engineering (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2009).
Historians Ruth Cowan and Linda Kerber showed how women became associated with the home and
domesticity. Ruth S. Cowan, More Work for Mother (New York: Basic Books, 1985). Linda Kerber,
"Separate Spheres, Female Worlds, Woman's Place: The Rhetoric of Women's History," The Journal of
American History 75, no. 1 (June 1988): 9-39.
5
Donna Shirley, Managing Martians (New York: Broadway Books, 1998), 42 and 210-212.
6
Shirley, 16.
7
Shirley, 39.

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anything. Griner's high school counselor told her she could not go to engineering school
because professors would flunk her because she was a woman. Griner's male physics
professor called the Dean of Engineering at Florida State in Tallahassee, and the dean
encouraged her and obtained a cooperative education (co-op) position for her at Marshall
in 1964.
8
Von Braun became the Marshall Center's first director in 1960, so he led the
center when Griner came there to work. In 1994, Griner became Deputy Center Director,
the second-most important position at Marshall and the highest rank achieved so far by a
female employee.
9

Before Shirley and Griner began dreaming of outer space, Margaret "Hap"
Brennecke became a pioneering engineer at the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa)
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Ohio State University in Columbus with
a bachelor's in chemistry in 1934. She stayed at Alcoa when World War II ended. By the
mid-1950s, Brennecke had conducted groundbreaking experiments as Alcoa learned how
to weld large structures for boats, aircraft, and bridges, yet she still used her initials to get
articles accepted by professional journals. Despite her successes, her career at Alcoa
stagnated. Inspired by President John F. Kennedy's 1961 speech directing NASA to send
men to the Moon by the end of the decade, she visited Marshall to check out employment
opportunities. She accepted a job as an engineer and helped develop the welding
processes for the Saturn V, the largest rocket ever built.
10


8
Carolyn Griner, Interview by Mike Wright, 2010, Series 107, Oral History Interview Transcripts, Digital
Collection, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Historical Reference Collection, Huntsville, Alabama, 17-
18 and 30.
9
NASA, "Carolyn Griner, One of NASA's Female Pioneers, to Retire from Marshall Center," NASA News
Release: 00-331, December 11, 2000, http://www.msfc.nasa.gov/news/news/releases/2000/00-331.html
(accessed March 5, 2012).
10
Margaret "Hap." W. Brennecke, interviewed by Tracy McMahan, Carolyn Russell, Miria Finckenor, and
Charlotte Shea, September 2004, Series 107, Oral History Interview Transcripts, Digital Collection, NASA
Marshall Space Flight Center Historical Reference Collection, 8-10.

McMahan 5

The stories of Shirley and Griner as young women who wanted to be engineers
and Brennecke as an experienced engineer revealed the complexity of gender values
during the Cold War. Unlike Brennecke, most women who had piloted and built aircraft
during World War II returned home as men flooded the job market after the war. In 1943,
women held an estimated 31 percent of the jobs in aircraft engine plants and performed
half the work necessary to build an airplane. By 1946, three million women had left the
workforce. Women once hailed as patriots became "a social problem," and employers
often discouraged them if they remained on the job.
11
While the government did not
provide an ideal work environment, women fared better there than in the competitive
corporate world, which paid higher salaries, and thus became the jobs men preferred.
12

In the 1950s and 1960s, young women had few female role models and often
parents encouraged them to play with dolls, not construction toys.
13
Many female
engineers had fathers or brothers who were engineers.
14
Popular books and biographies
depicted women scientists as super humans who could do it all, such as the famous
scientist who discovered radiation, Marie Curie, or as women who would become
spinsters devoting their lives to science. Women adopted masculine roles at work to

11
Leslie Haynesworth and David Toomey, Amelia Earhart's Daughters (New York: Perennial, 2000), 151.
12
Margaret W. Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940-1972 (Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 256-276.
13
Judith S. McIlwee and J. Gregg Robinson. Women in Engineering: Gender, Power and Workplace
Culture (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992), 175. This study said women engineers
had fewer experiences with hands-on activities, such as building models.
14
Amy Sue Bix, "'From Engineeresses' To 'Girl Engineers' To 'Good Engineers': A History of Women's
U.S. Engineering Education," NWSA Journal 16, no. 1 (2004): 27. Sharon M. Friedman, "Women in
Engineering: Influential Factor for Career Choice," Newsletter on Science, Technology, & Human Values,
no. 20 (June 1977): 14. This survey showed engineering appealed to students because engineering jobs paid
well and that family members who were engineers influenced them to pursue engineering careers.

McMahan 6

legitimize their presence, and feminine roles at home to gain acceptance in social
circles.
15

History reinforced myths that science and engineering should be the domain of
men and not just any man: either the male macho man or the nerdy socially inept man.
Magazines, novels, television shows, and movies portrayed engineers and starship
captains as men and women as their assistants.
16
Sylvia Fries, who served as NASA chief
historian from 1983 to 1990, called engineers "the Paul Bunyans of the new industrial
age," and described how NASA perpetuated gender myths:
Engineering thus acquired a machismo, which was reinforced by federal policies
in the 1940s and 1950s that assured that engineering would remain a man's
occupation. The same generation of engineers that shaped this agency [NASA]
after 1958 would preserve the fantasy that men were uniquely gifted to be
engineers. In truth, the only thing that was unique about them was that never
before and never since has the federal government done so much to guarantee
that one profession would be dominated by a single group of American society.
17


Historical analyses and statistics supported Fries's argument. Rossiter described
the period from 1940 to 1972 as a "golden age for science in America" but "a very dark

15
Julie Des Jardins, The Madame Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science (New York:
The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2010), 8 and 214. This book traced the lives of several female scientists
during different eras and showed the strategies they used to succeed as scientists.
16
Amy E. Foster, Integrating Women into the Astronaut Corps: Politics and Logistics at NASA, 1972-2004
(Boston: The Johns Hopkins Press, 2011), 23-45. Foster devoted Chapter 2 to the topic of how woman
were portrayed in science fiction and movies.
17
Sylvia D. Fries, The History of Women in NASA, NASA Technical Memorandum, NASA-TM-108100
(Washington, D.C.: NASA Headquarters, 1991). Originally presented at Women's Equality Day, Marshall
Space Flight Center, August 23, 1991, 5.

McMahan 7

age for women in the professions."
18
Statistics from a 1957 National Science Foundation
report showed that while government expanded in the 1950s and employed more women,
females rarely advanced to high levels. Women scientists and engineers only made up
4.28 percent of federal scientists and engineers or 4,303 of 100,458. Only 0.4 percent
(175 women) worked in engineering, which was one of the largest employment
categories with 43,272 total employees.
19

The American education and labor system worked together to encourage
segregation of men and women in science. Veterans received preferential hiring
consideration for federal jobs, the GI bill paid for veterans' educations, and they often
studied science and engineering. This limited women's abilities to obtain degrees from
the few schools allowing women to study engineering. During the Cold War era,
engineering received the most federal funding and yet employed the fewest women.
20

In a 1956 National Science Foundation (NSF) study, the NSF encouraged women
to be teachers and men to be scientists and engineers. Federal programs promoted
educating and hiring scientists and engineers, and women took advantage of scholarships
offered through the Defense Education Act, but some people complained that women
should not be allowed to apply for these scholarships. A Wall Street Journal headline
read, "Officials Fear Many Federal Scholarships Will Go to GirlsWho Will Shun
Careers."
21
The chair of the President's Committee on the Development of Engineers and
Scientists, Eric A. Walker, who also served as the dean of engineering at Penn State

18
Rossiter, Women Scientists In America, xv.
19
Rossiter, Women Scientists In America, 277-278.
20
Rossiter, Which Science? Which Women, 180. Rossiter presented a table that showed in 1959,
engineering received the most federal funding ($461,059,000) with medical science second ($267,647,000),
physics third ($139,188,000), and space science fourth ($117,157,000).
21
Foster, 18.

McMahan 8

wrote an article entitled, "Women Are NOT for Engineering."
22
In 1960, less than one
percent of engineering students were women.
23
The Society for Women Engineers,
incorporated in 1952, encouraged universities to admit women and offered assistance for
women struggling in hostile male-dominated universities and workplaces. Some men
fought for women's rights to study engineering. When the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT), which had graduated women with science and engineering degrees
since the mid-1800s, almost banned women from engineering, MIT's president said that
the Cold War called for "developing all professional talent."
24

In the 1960s, women had more opportunities to study science and engineering at
universities, but often parents, counselors, and professors did not encourage them. When
astronaut Shannon Lucid graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a bachelor's in
chemistry in 1963, one professor told her she would not find a job and she should go
home and get married. She changed bedpans in a nursing home until she returned to
school and earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1973. Finally, the Oklahoma Medical
Research Foundation in Oklahoma City hired her, and she worked there until 1978, when
NASA selected her as an astronaut candidate in the first astronaut class that included
women.
25

Like Lucid, Shirley had a difficult career path on her way to being one of NASA's
first Mars program managers. When she left her small town for college, her university
counselor made her take an aptitude test that showed she should not be an engineer, even
though she had succeeded in high school science and math classes. For various reasons,

22
Rossiter, "Which Science? Which Women?" 177-180.
23
Bix, 27-30.
24
Bix, 34.
25
Foster, 17-18 and NASA, "Biographical Data: Shannon W. Lucid, NASA Astronaut," February 2012.
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/lucid.html (accessed March 11, 2012).

McMahan 9

she gave up on her engineering degree, graduated with a journalism degree, and
experienced blatant discrimination in her first job as a technical writer at an aerospace
company in St. Louis, Missouri. Later, she decided to fulfill her dream of being an
engineer and went back to school for her engineering degree. When NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) hired her, she wanted to obtain her master's degree from
Caltech since the university managed JPL for NASA, but Caltech still did not accept
women, so she had to earn her master's from the University of California in Berkeley.
26

Few female scientists and engineers worked for agencies that transferred
employees to NASA when it formed. The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
(NACA), which formed the nucleus for NASA in 1958, only employed 133 women (3.09
percent) in professional careers and only two female engineers. The 1954 Department of
Defense (DOD) statistics may be a better guide for understanding Marshall since most of
Marshall's founding members transferred from the ABMA. In 1954, DOD employed
more women scientists and engineers than any other federal agency: 1,331 or 30.51
percent of women employed by the federal government and 131 of the 175 female
engineers working for the federal government.
27

While NASA kept no formal statistics on gender until 1972, some informal
sources provided data. A 1961 Marshall Star article stated, "22 female scientists and
engineers are among the 43 professionally skilled women at MSFC."
28
At this point, total
MSFC employment neared 6,000 and was growing. Ann McNair, who earned degrees in
mathematics and physics from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, was one of the

26
Shirley, 59, 68, 83.
27
Rossiter, Women Scientists In America, 278-279.
28
Mike Wright, "Women Scientists and Engineers in the 1960s and 1970s at the Marshall Space Flight
Center," NASA Fact Sheet, FS-20000-03-062-MSFC, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, 2000, 1.

McMahan 10

twenty-two. While women had few formal networks at the time, informal connections
existed. McNair knew little about the space program but recalled an older female
classmate told her about the "cool" space satellites and suggested that McNair seek
employment at Redstone.
29
McNair started work for the Army in 1957 as an intern on the
Explorer I satellite, which became America's first satellite when a Redstone rocket built
by von Braun's ABMA team lofted it into orbit on January 31, 1958. The ABMA hired
McNair as a permanent employee in 1958, and she transferred to Marshall when it
formed.
The Redstone Rocket, the ABMA newsletter, featured women who calculated the
orbits for Explorer IV and called them, "pioneers in a brand new field of endeavor for the
fair sex." Women with mathematics degrees fared well because they often became
"human computers" who performed calculations in the age before desktop computers.
30

The article referred to the women as "Miss" or "Mrs." but did not use "Mr." for men.
31

Minor progress can even be seen by the shift in less condescending rhetoric in a 1959
Redstone Rocket article that featured McNair and still listed female marital status but
called them "women scientists" and pointed out that they worked in five of the ABMA's
ten laboratories and provided support "from the drawing pad to the launch pad."
32




29
Ann McNair, Interview by Mike Wright, 2010, Series 107, Oral History Transcripts, Digital Collection,
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Historical Reference Collection, 2-4.
30
Fries, 8-9.
31
"Women in Computation Lab Help Plot Number IV's Orbit: Team of Seven Plans Calculations for
Weeks to Come," The Redstone Rocket, July 30, 1956, Redstone Rocket Digital Collection, U.S. Army
Aviation and Missile Command Historical Office, Redstone Arsenal, 13.
32
"Women Scientists at ABMA Contribute Much To Army's Space Probe Project," March 11, 1959, The
Redstone Rocket, Redstone Rocket Digital Collection, U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command
Historical Office, Redstone Arsenal, 6.

McMahan 11

Women Scientists and Engineers at Marshall, 1960-1967
When Marshall formed in 1960, the center focused on developing rockets. The
pace of the space race, and Marshall's workload, picked up in 1961 after President
Kennedy directed NASA to send a man to the Moon by the end of the decade. Marshall
civil service employment increased every year from 1961 and peaked in 1966, but
according to a Marshall history, "Marshall's workforce was predominately white, male,
and well-educated."
33
Even President Kennedy did not mention sending a woman to the
Moon, and NASA dubbed the program the "manned" space program. Historian Mark
Byrnes said that NASA cultivated a nationalistic and romantic heroic image. The
Mercury 7 astronauts in their shiny silver suits (the NASA macho image) and male
engineers with white shirts, skinny ties, and heavy dark glasses (the NASA nerd image)
perpetuated common gender myths.
34
Griner started work for MSFC in 1964 and said that
during the Apollo era, she felt most uncomfortable when visiting NASA's Johnson Space
Center (JSC): "These are the people with the astronaut corps, which at the time was all
male. These are the people with a mission control center with all male flight controllers.
The whole world was crew cuts, white shirts, and narrow black ties, and I don't look good
in any of those. It was a totally male-dominated environment."
35

Several books have addressed NASA's refusal to consider women as astronauts
even after thirteen women (dubbed the Mercury 13) passed many of the same tests used

33
Dunar, 64.
34
Byrnes, 1-2.
35
Griner Interview, 31. Marshall and Johnson were always highly competitive. See Dunar, 149-151. Just as
Marshall changed over the years, so did Johnson. Johnson was one of the first Centers to have a female
Center Director when Dr. Carolyn Huntoon became director in 1994. She played a crucial role in selecting
and helping the first female astronaut class in 1978. (See Foster, 99-100.)

McMahan 12

to select the Mercury 7 astronauts.
36
The President's Commission on the Status of
Women (PCSW), established by President Kennedy in 1961, never mentioned this case
of discrimination, even though it had been addressed in the media, congressional
hearings, and protests by women's organizations.
37
NASA Administrator James Webb,
Associate Administrator George Mueller, and von Braun defended not flying female
astronauts. When one of the Mercury 13 pilots wrote a letter to von Braun requesting that
he support women as astronauts, he replied that he could not qualify to be an astronaut
either.
38
Rossiter wrote that most early NASA officials had military backgrounds and
were "the most sexist and discriminatory in the federal government."
39

In 1963 Soviet cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to fly
in space, and logged more time in space than all the American male astronauts who had
flown at that time. This became the only Soviet "first" in space that NASA did not
consider challenging.
40
After Tereshkova's flight, women's groups protested and Life
magazine, which earlier promoted the Mercury astronauts as having "the right stuff,"
criticized NASA's exclusion of females. This reflected society's changing attitudes
toward women and the workplace in the mid- and late-sixties. NASA continued its policy
of only allowing male astronauts until 1978, and the Soviets did not fly another female
cosmonaut until 1982about a year before physicist Sally Ride became the first

36
Margaret A. Weitekamp, Right Stuff, Wrong Sex: America's First Women in Space Program (Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006) provided a scholarly account, and Foster's Integrating Women
into the Astronaut Corps included the story as background.
37
Rossiter, Women Scientists in America, 293.
38
Weitekamp, Right Stuff, Wrong Sex, 138
39
Rossiter, Women Scientists in America, 293.
40
Weitekamp, Right Stuff, Wrong Sex, 3-4. Weitekamp wrote that if a woman could fly the Mercury
capsule that would mean that it was inferior to Soviet technology. She cited the 1959 "kitchen debate" in
which U.S. Vice-President Richard Nixon showed Soviet Premier Khrushchev a model U.S. kitchen and
maintained American women helped maintain the American way of life by devoting themselves to the
home. Khrushchev countered that Russian women were productive workers.

McMahan 13

American woman astronaut to fly in space on the seventh Space Shuttle mission in
1983.
41

Even though the female astronaut issue appeared in headlines across the country,
few NASA women, including those at Marshall, protested NASA's refusal to consider
female astronauts.
42
In the 1960s, most women at Marshall were young, in their first
professional jobs at the bottom of the government pay scale, and surrounded by men.
Women scientists and engineers, including those at Marshall, indicated hard work
mattered most and seemed not to want to criticize their employers.
43

Women seemed as excited as men about beating the Soviets to the Moon.
Brennecke attended the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels where she saw Russian technology,
and she had visited Russia plants while employed at Alcoa. She felt the U.S. had fallen
behind the Soviets.
44
She recalled working ten hours every Saturday and said that von
Braun often dropped by to discuss problems they had in welding the 33-foot-diameter
rocket fuel tanks.
45
By 1965, McNair managed an engineering group that supported the
execution of Apollo flights. Near the end of her career in 2010, she had achieved one of
the highest management positions at Marshall as the director of the Office of Center
Operations. Nevertheless, she considered the 1968 Apollo 8 mission, the first manned

41
Margaret A. Weitekamp, "Lovelace's Woman in Space Program," NASA History Office,
http://history.nasa.gov/flats.html (accessed January 26, 2012).
42
Sample newspaper reports: "No Women Astronauts? U.S. Can't Find One," The Evening Bulletin,
Philadelphia, October 20, 1966; Marion Dietrich, "No Skirts in Space," Orlando Tribune, October 29,
1966; Ann Sonne, "Why a Woman Astronaut Can't Get Off the Ground," Los Angeles Times, December 7,
1966.
43
Rossiter, Women Scientists in America, 290-292 and 381. Federal employees are paid on a General
Schedule (GS) scale in ranges from GS-1 to GS-15. By 1963, no female executives ranked above a GS-14,
according to Rossiter (292). Most women scientists were paid at GS-12 or lower, which was a lower rank
than most male scientists (291), and most women were secretaries paid a low GS-5 levels. The highest rank
for federal employees is Senior Executive Service (SES); review boards select these employees.
44
Brennecke Interview, 10.
45
Brennecke interview, 13.

McMahan 14

flight to the Moon, her proudest moment.
46
Griner remembered the Saturn era as hectic:
"There was a lot of problem solving going on at the time. Everybody was really pushed to
the hilt."
47

The Saturn/Apollo era proved a time of prestige for Marshall. President Kennedy
and Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson visited the center in September 1962. After
Johnson became president, the first lady, Claudia Alta Taylor "Lady Bird" Johnson
visited in March 1964. A Marshall Star article described her as "looking pretty and
pert."
48
Women participated in almost every tour stop, indicating von Braun and other
NASA officials knew the importance President Johnson placed on the role of women in
the federal workplace. In the past, von Braun had briefed Kennedy and Johnson.
49

During the peak of the Apollo Program, Marshall's workforce expanded. Between
1960 and 1964, the number of scientists and engineers at Marshall rose from 27.7 percent
to 37.6 percent, and in 1966, the MSFC civil service workforce peaked at 7,740, making
Marshall the largest NASA field center with 21.7 percent of NASA's workforce; 22,000
contractors supported the civil servants.
50
While NASA kept no statistics on women
scientists and engineers, NASA engineer Catherine Dryden Hock said that in 1965,
"NASA's engineering force is 3 percent women." Hock credited the space program with
reversing the declining numbers of women in engineering after World War II.
51
National
Science Foundation statistics showed an upward trend in total federal employment of

46
McNair, 1.
47
Griner, 5.
48
"U.S. First Lady Spends Day with Space Employees," The Marshall Star, March 25, 1964, Series 101,
Marshall Star PDFs, Digital Collection, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Historical Reference
Collection, Huntsville, Alabama, 1.
49
U.S. First Lady Spends Day with Space Employees,"1-4.
50
Dunar, 58-63. There were 700 GS-15 level employees during the Apollo buildup. No statistics were kept
on gender, but based on Rossiter's 1963 statistics, probably few if any were female.
51
"Lady Engineer At NASA Cites Increase In Numbers of Government Scientists," NASA News Release:
65-60, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., February 25, 1965.

McMahan 15

women from 1954 to 1968 but only slim gains in percentage of total employees. The
number of women scientists and engineers rose from 4,303 to 6,945 but the total number
of scientists and engineers rose from 100,458 to 160,819, so the percentage of females
only rose from 4.28 percent in 1954 to 4.32 percent in 1968. Only 0.4 percent (175
women) worked in engineering in 1954 with the total number of engineers being 43,272.
In 1968, engineering remained the leader in total number of employees at 82,765
including 428 female engineers, but the percentage only went up to 0.52 percent.
52

Women had inconsistent experiences riddled with gender issues that permeated
1960s culture. Griner described her first co-op job at Marshall as clerical, so she switched
departments. Her male colleagues had years of experience as engineers and treated her in
a paternalistic fashion, like a daughter, but they encouraged her to learn. During this
period, Marshall employed hundreds of skilled blue collar craftsman and subscribed to
the "arsenal " philosophy of getting your hands dirty by building hardware in house.
53

Griner said that the technicians taught her how to do the real work of engineering and she
owed her success to them. She never felt any discrimination from these blue-collar
workers, even later when she supervised their activities.
54

Griner called Brennecke "a true pioneer in every sense of the word."
55
Being a
welding specialist, Brennecke spent long hours on shop floors and in manufacturing
plants. She too got along well with the shop technicians, and they often made jokes, such
as writing her nickname, Hap, as "Miss Hap" on her hardhat.
56
Brennecke's supervisors
and male engineering colleagues proved difficult. Brennecke said that her male

52
Rossiter, Women Scientists in America, 277-278 and 298.
53
Dunar, 64 and 154.
54
Griner Interview, 5-10.
55
Griner Interview, 1.
56
Brennecke Interview, 10.

McMahan 16

colleagues perceived her as a "curiosity" at best, and at worst, she said, "There was not
just curiosity, but resentment for invading their territory, hostility, and jealously. In some
cases, fear of competition."
57
She said that they often nitpicked a her reports, tried to
interfere with her work, and one supervisor even tried to change her job description in an
attempt to move her to another department. "There's such a thing as survival," she said.
"You learn to go around or up or down of the roadblocks."
58

The work environment at Marshall, exhibited sexist elements and gendered
descriptions. A 1962 Marshall Star profile of Brennecke described her as someone "who
wields a torch as efficiently as most secretaries handle a pencil."
59
This comparison
eluded to a common female job at Marshall during this period, clerical workers and
secretaries who often seemed to be treated differently than the female scientists and
engineers. The Marshall Star featured a full-page, front-page photo of the Space Queen
who had a crown made of Saturn rockets.
60
After she became a supervisor, McNair
recalled an Army official talking abusively to her secretary. When McNair called the
official to complain, he treated her the same way, but then reframed when she told him
her position. "So, it was like it was okay to be rude to a GS-4 or 5," McNair said. "That
was quite alarming to me and telling."
61

The buildings at Marshall and aerospace companies had been designed without
considering that women would achieve the ranks of executives or without considering the

57
Brennecke Interview, 10.
58
Brennecke Interview, 11.
59
"Star Salute: 'Miss Hap' Brennecke Carries Torch In Manufacturing Engineering Department," The
Marshall Star, March 7, 1962, Series 101, Marshall Star PDFs, Digital Document Collection, NASA
Marshall Space Flight Center Historical Reference Collection, Huntsville, Alabama, 5.
60
"Marshall Space Queen Linda Page to Reign July 1," The Marshall Star, June 28, 1961, Series 101,
Marshall Star PDFs, Digital Collection, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Historical Reference
Collection, Huntsville, Alabama.
61
McNair Interview, 15. Most secretaries made lower level General Schedule (GS) 5 to 7 pay.

McMahan 17

needs of women support personnel who worked in these areas. McNair gave briefings in
von Braun's tenth-floor conference room in the 4200 administrative building. Not only
did the executive table have no women seated there, no bathrooms had been provided for
women visitors or briefers. After her first briefing, McNair discovered she had to search
for a bathroom on another floor, even though the men had not only a bathroom but also a
gym on the tenth floor. She said that while she was one of few women who gave
briefings on the tenth floor, many secretaries attended meetings, but male leaders had not
considered providing a bathroom for any female even those who supported them on a
regular basis.
62
Griner and Brennecke found no women's restrooms at many contractor
plants across the country.
63

Other examples revealed the conflicting messages MSFC women received. The
same 1962 issue of the Marshall Star that highlighted Brennecke's competence and
included a photo of her working with manufacturing equipment included a cartoon on
another page that showed a male and female hiding underneath a blueprint on a drafting
table with the caption: "Are you sure they're only working on a confidential
illustration?"
64
Examples of gender relationships at Marshall invaded the Brennecke
profile. The article stated she was as comfortable in Marshall's manufacturing work "as a
housewife in a kitchen" and "she reads blueprints like a housewife reads patterns and
associates metal layouts with dressmaking." While other parts of the article featured
Brennecke's technical accomplishments and trips to Moscow shipyards, the writer placed
her within the gender framework of the most common female occupations of the day:
secretary and housewife.

62
McNair Interview, 9-12.
63
Griner Interview, 24.
64
Star Salute: 'Miss Hap' Brennecke, 5 and 7.

McMahan 18

When the article asked, "How does a woman invade a so-called man's world?"
Brennecke answered, "Establish yourself on the basis of what you can contribute, not on
the basis of being a gal."
65
Brennecke and other women tried to call attention to their
expertise, rather than their sex. These attempts to be no different than the "guys" while
being showcased as a "woman" proved difficult for women but were common in the
sixties. McNair said that her male colleagues tended to treat her as "one of the guys." "It
worked okay for me," she explained, "but if you really want to talk about moving forward
in the basic culture and organization, and the acceptance of your talent, that was really
not good."
66

In the mid- and late-sixties, President Johnson had studies conducted, and in
1967, he signed Executive Order 11375, which outlawed sex discrimination in all federal
employment and for federal contractors. The order created the Federal Women's Program
that collected statistics on female employment and gave an annual award to one female
federal employee. Johnson ordered agencies to offer flexible work arrangements for
women.
67
"By 1967, the federal sector was the only employer that responded to the
women's movement in any way," Rossiter wrote.
68
A 1967 news release offered women
an opportunity to work part-time at Marshall "without giving up their household and
parental responsibilities."
69

While MSFC women became more visible, they confronted barriers in a work
place with few female professionals. McNair said that no women held high-level

65
Star Salute: 'Miss Hap' Brennecke, 5.
66
McNair Interview, 10.
67
Rossiter, Women Scientists in America, 292.
68
Rossiter, Women Scientists in America, 277.
69
"Professional Women in Demand at Marshall Space Flight Center," NASA News Release: 67-2, NASA
Marshall Space Flight Center, January 6, 1967, Series 100, PDF Searchable Full-Text Documents, Digital
Collection, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Historical Reference Collection, 1.

McMahan 19

positions.
70
Still, McNair's boss encouraged her, and she often traveled representing
Marshall at technical meetings. In those days, government employees shared hotel rooms.
McNair said that they just assumed everyone attending meetings would be men, so often
they assigned her to room with a man, and it had to be changed.
71
Brennecke reported a
similar story about trips to inspect Saturn manufacturing plants, but the rooming situation
proved to be the least of her problems. She complained about the procedures for a test,
but male engineers would not consider her recommendations. She called her MSFC
supervisor, and he said that he would back her up if she stopped the test, which she did.
72

Brennecke, McNair, and Griner all mentioned male supervisors and colleagues at
Marshall who encouraged them.
Congressional legislation and presidential orders strengthened women's positions.
The 1963 PCSW's study resulted in the elimination of separate lists for female and male
job candidates and prevented managers from specifying sexual preferences. Male
managers could still chose from the top three candidates, so a woman rated as the top
candidate did not always get the job.
73
McNair remembered not getting the opportunity to
apply for a job. When she confronted her supervisor, he claimed he thought she would
not be interested because she had a child, and the job required significant travel. "I found
myself in a situation where decisions were made for me," she said. "I think it was a
common thing."
74


70
McNair Interview, 12.
71
McNair Interview, 8.
72
Brennecke Interview, 17.
73
Rossiter, Women Scientists in America, 294.
74
McNair Interview, 7.

McMahan 20

Von Braun emphasized the need for qualified female applicants and compared
America unfavorably to countries where more women received advanced degrees.
75
He
wrote, "There are no 'Men Only' signs blocking the way for women who want an exciting
and rewarding career in space exploration. Science is impersonal. It has no gender."
76

Still, no formal processes existed to accelerate Marshall women's careers or to promote
hiring of females. The 1964 Civil Rights Act forbade discrimination based on race or sex,
but in the sixties, civil rights issues resulted in pressure for Marshall to hire African
Americans, not women.
77
A 1970 history of equal opportunity at MSFC reported on
African-American hiring and promotion but did not mention women.
78


Women Scientists and Engineers at Marshall, 1968-1975
Turmoil and uncertainty surrounded Marshall's future and played havoc with
MSFC officials efforts to increase the number of women scientists and engineers. On
November 9, 1967, the Saturn V launched for the first time, lifting an unmanned Apollo
capsule into orbit for the Apollo 4 test flight. Von Braun called it Marshall's finest
moment, but that same day NASA Headquarters notified him that cuts to NASA's budget

75
Wernher von Braun, "Space and the Working Woman," Speech Honoring Amelia Earhart to the Zonta
Club of Birmingham Alabama, January 18, 1968, Series 114, Equal Opportunity Collection, Digital
Collection, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Historical Reference Collection, Huntsville, Alabama, 1,
4, and 8.
76
Wernher von Braun, "Women In Space," Draft speech, September 1964, Series 114 Equal Opportunity
Collection, Digital Collection, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Historical Reference Collection,
Huntsville, Alabama, 1. A similar quote appeared in letter to a college. Wernher von Braun, letter to
Andrew A. Molloy, July 26, 1968, Series 114 Equal Opportunity Collection, Digital Collection, NASA
Marshall Space Flight Center Historical Reference Collection, Huntsville, Alabama, 2.
77
Dunar, 117-119.
78
Professional Staffing: A Chronology of the Equal Employment Opportunity Program at MSFC.
Manpower Office. Administrative and Technical Services. NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, February
1970. Series 114, Equal Opportunity Collection, Digital Collection, Marshall Space Flight Center
Historical Reference Collection, Marshall Center Director Collection.

McMahan 21

would force Marshall to reduce employees.
79
Funding for Apollo peaked in 1965,
Marshall employment peaked in 1966 at 7,740, and Marshall's workforce never came
close to this number again.
80
Marshall made the first job cuts in 1968, the year Griner
started as a full-time engineer. Shirley did not fare as well at JPL where NASA cut her
job; however, JPL rehired her in a different position a few months after they laid her off.
Men walked on the Moon for the first time on July 20, 1969, during the Apollo 11
mission. In 1970, von Braun left Marshall for a position at NASA Headquarters, and Dr.
Eberhard Rees became Marshall's second director. "Rees had the misfortune of assuming
control of Marshall at the most difficult time in the center's history," according to
Marshall's history.
81
Congress passed the 1972 Equal Opportunity Act that mandated
hiring and promoting women, but budgets continued to shrink and more MSFC
employees lost jobs. In 1972, NASA Administrator James Fletcher announced the hiring
of NASA's first Equal Opportunity Director, Ruth Bates Harris, but then he demoted her
a mere two weeks later. Chaos ensued as Harris tried to bring NASA in compliance with
federal laws. "To Harris, NASA began to look like the uninterested at Headquarters
leading the uncommitted at the Centers," according to historian Kim McQuaid.
82
Harris
disagreed with Rees's staffing plan for the Equal Opportunity Office (EEO).
83
He

79
Dunar, 135-142.
80
Dunar, 64. The contractor workforce lost jobs sooner and faster than MSFC.
81
Dunar, 156-157.
82
Kim McQuaid, "Racism, Sexism, and Space Ventures:" Civil Rights at NASA in the Nixon Era and
Beyond," in Societal Impact of Spaceflight, eds. Steven J. Dick and Roger D. Launius, 421-449, NASA SP-
2007-4801 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2007), 431.
83
Ruth Bates Harris, letter to Eberhard F.M. Rees, May 26, 1972, Series 114, Equal Opportunity
Collection, Digital Collection, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Historical Reference Collection,
Huntsville, Alabama, 1-3.

McMahan 22

promised to "provide an aggressive program" at the conclusion of the RIF situation.
84
In a
status report, Harris stated that Marshall had improved but "the existing staff is either
unproven or inadequate."
85

MSFC contractors had to provide affirmative action plans and meet employment
targets. Memorandums indicated that headquarters did not agree with MSFC's plan to
ensure contractor compliance and had threatened to take the issue to Fletcher. A note
said, "I am not impressed with his threat to forward his objections to Fletcher. In fact, I
hope he does so Fletcher can see what we are up against."
86
The relationship improved
with Harris telling Rees: "MSFC appears about to 'turn the corner.'"
87
However, the letter
mentioned complaints about promotions, lack of contractor compliance with affirmative
action goals, and the removal of posters reported to be "offensive to women."
88

About a year later, Harris provided an internal report to Fletcher that
characterized NASA's affirmative action as "a near-total failure."
89
Harris criticized the
three southern NASA centers (MSFC, JSC, and Kennedy Space Center in Florida) for not
hiring any minorities in 1972; even with cutbacks, MSFC hired 24 people.
90
Marshall

84
Eberhard Rees, letter to Ruth Bates Harris, July 21, 1972, Series 114, Equal Opportunity Collection,
Digital Collection, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Historical Reference Collection, Huntsville,
Alabama, 1-3.
85
Ruth Bates Harris, memorandum to the Associate Administrator of Manned Space Flight, Concerning
"Quarterly Reports from the Manned Space Centers in regard to the Center Affirmative Action Plans,"
September 2, 1972. Series 114, Equal Opportunity Collection, Digital Collection, NASA Marshall Space
Flight Center Historical Reference Collection, Huntsville, Alabama, 1.
86
Art Sanderson, memorandum for Record to Mr. Cook, September 29, 1992, Series 114, Equal
Opportunity Collection, Digital Collection, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Historical Reference
Collection, Huntsville, Alabama, 1-3
87
Ruth Bates Harris, letter to Eberhard Rees, November 22, 1972, Series 114, Equal Opportunity
Collection, Digital Collection, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Historical Reference Collection,
Huntsville, Alabama, 1-3.
88
Harris, letter to Eberhard Rees, November 22, 1972, 1-3.
89
McQuaid, 433.
90
McQuaid, 432.

McMahan 23

had the highest number of female employees of any center (828 of 4,449 employees in
1972), but they only made up 15.3 percent of the workforce.
91

Marshall underwent organization changes. Rees retired in 1973, and Dr. Rocco
Petrone became the new center director and reorganized the center.
92
William Lucas
served as Marshall center director from 1974 to 1986 when most of Marshall's EEO
transformation took place.
93
In 1973, Fletcher fired Harris, and later in 1974, rehired her
in a fiasco played out on a national stage in the media and Congressional hearings.
94
In
1973, statistics showed MSFC having thirty-seven female scientists and engineers out of
2,350 total.
95
One of the thirty-seven female scientists or engineers received a
promotion.
96
On the positive side, only one female left in a year when MSFC eliminated
115 employees either through retirement or RIFs.
97

Griner recalled this as a tense time. She received one of the few raises the MSFC
engineering directorate gave out, and a male colleague told her she should not have
received the raise because she was married. "It was like I didn't have a right to achieve,
and my work was not worth what someone else's was," Griner said. When she applied for
extended leave to be out while she had her first baby, the administrative office made her
sign a statement that she planned to return to work. Two days before the baby's due date,
the paperwork remained unapproved, so Griner went to the administrator's office. When

91
Ihor Y. Gawdiak and Helen Fedor, "Chapter 3, NASA Personnel," in SP-4012 NASA Historical Data
Book Volume IV, NASA Resources 1969-1978. http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4012/vol4/ch3.htm (accessed
March 11, 2012).
92
Dunar, 161-163.
93
Dunar, 167.
94
McQuaid, 434.
95
"Permanent Employees, Total, Minority, Female by Occupational Group, By Installation," June 30, 1973,
EEO Statistics Folder, George M. Low Papers, NASA Headquarters History Archives, 1.
96
"Permanent Employee Accessions, Total by Occupational Group, By Installation- FY '71/'73," EEO
Statistics Folder, George M. Low Papers, NASA Headquarters History Archives, 1.
97
"Permanent Employee Separations, Total by Occupational Group, By Installation, FY '71/'73," and
"Permanent Employee Separations, Female By Occupational Group, By Installation, FY '71/'73," EEO
Statistics Folder, George M. Low Papers, NASA Headquarters History Archives, 1.

McMahan 24

he questioned her presence, she patted her stomach and said, "Baby's due, and I am not
leaving your office until you sign this paper, and if the baby's born here, that's okay with
me."
98
He approved the paperwork. "There was this whole vision that women were not
career women," explained Griner.
99

Harriett Jenkins became the NASA EEO Director and served in that position from
1974 to 1992. Marshall continued to shed jobs, and NASA Headquarters considered
closing Marshall in 1975 and 1977.
100
In a 1977 letter to Lucas, Jenkins cited low
numbers of minorities and females among MSFC new hires.
101
The following year,
Jenkins offered another negative evaluation of MSFC's efforts, and Lucas responded that
1980 looked better and pointed out that the center had expanded opportunities for women
and minorities during a time of declining employment.
102
To Marshall's credit, as the total
workforce continued to shrink from 1973 to 1975, the percentage of female employees
continued to rise and reached 19.4 percent by 1980.
103

In the 1970s, Marshall women did not allow limited numbers to hold them back.
A 1975 Marshall Star article highlighted Brennecke's design work on the Space Shuttle,
with no comparisons to recipes or dress patterns similar to those found in the 1961 Star
profile of Brennecke.
104
In 1974, Griner and an all-female crew conducted a five-day
simulation to practice experiments similar to ones planned for the Space Shuttle. This

98
Griner Interview, 21.
99
Griner interview, 21-22.
100
Dunar, 165-167.
101
Harriett G. Jenkins, Letter to Marshall Space Flight Center Director, November 23, 1977, Series 114,
Equal Opportunity Collection, Digital Collection, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Historical Record
Collection, Huntsville, Alabama, 1.
102
William Lucas, letter to Harriett G. Jenkins,, October 11, 1979, Series 114, Equal Opportunity
Collection, Digital Collection, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Historical Record Collection,
Huntsville, Alabama, 1.
103
Dunar, 620. At this time, Marshall did not break out female employment statistics by job description.
104
"Star Spotlight: Miss Margaret W. Brennecke," The Marshall Star, April 9, 1975, Series 101, Marshall
Star PDFs, Digital Collection, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Historical Record Collection,
Huntsville, Alabama, 3.

McMahan 25

work helped establish design criteria so that female astronauts could work productively in
space. Up to this point, human factors data had been based only on men.
105

By 1975, the road ahead for women scientists and engineers at Marshall remained
challenging, but foundations had been laid for steady improvements. For NASA overall,
the number of women scientists and engineers increased from 3 percent in the 1960s to 5
percent in 1981 and to 8 percent in 1987. By 1991, five times more female scientists and
engineers worked at Marshall than in 1981, and perhaps more significantly, the number
of women in pay grades above GS-13 increased ten-fold, with six women at the highest
general schedule level (GS-15). Three females, including Griner, at the Senior Executive
Service (SES) level, whereas in 1981, no MSFC woman had obtained SES level, and
only three had obtained GS-15 level.
106


Conclusion
Marshall changed from a workplace that resisted difference to one that valued
differing viewpoints. MSFC Acting Center Director Gene Goldman wrote, "We want a
diverse, inclusive team that uses the strengths and experiences of all employees."
107

When NASA's Deputy Administrator Lori Garver announced a new blog for women, she
wrote, "NASA is one of the largest federal employers of women in the STEM [Science
Technology Engineering and Math] fields."
108
Garver indicated NASA has room for

105
Wright, 2.
106
Fries, 10-11.
107
Gene Goldman, E-Mail Message to Center Employees, "Special Heads Up: Deputy Center Director
invites employees to attend Black History Month event, February 15, 2012, Series 114, Equal Opportunity
Collection, Digital Collection, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Historical Reference Collection,
Huntsville, Alabama, 1.
108
Lori Garver, "Message from the Deputy Administrator: Women's History Month, March 12, 2012,
Series 114, Series 114, Equal Opportunity Collection, Digital Collection, NASA Marshall Space Flight

McMahan 26

improvement. As of March 2012, MSFC employed 393 female scientists and engineers
and 1,358 male scientists and engineers; ten women served at the SES level, compared to
36 men. The center's total employment lingered around 2,500 civil servants, so
employment levels have continued to drop.
109
With Space Shuttle flights ending in 2011,
MSFC faced uncertainties similar to those faced when the Apollo Program ended.
In the 1960s, persistent women scientists and engineers did not let society deny
their dreams. These pioneers remained on the job despite myths regarding working
women and barriers encountered at work. In the process, they helped change Marshall's
work climate and paved the way for future female scientists and engineers. In the 1970s,
employment and advancement opportunities for MSFC females increased, even when
Marshall's future remained uncertain. Fries said, "Cultural change cannot be made to
happen overnight, but change can be worked at incrementally and persistently."
110
The
internal pressures exerted by Marshall female scientists and engineers combined with
equal opportunity programs to create change in a male-dominated workplace. External
pressures in the form of legislation and societal change accelerated the process. The
period from 1960 to 1975 proved to be a time of transformation for Marshall's workforce
that laid the foundation for improved opportunities for women scientists and engineers
who want to participate in America's exploration of space.

Center Historical Reference Collection, Huntsville, Alabama, 1, and "Women at NASA."
http://women.nasa.gov (accessed March 12, 2012).

109
"Workforce Size," NASA People, http://nasapeople.nasa.gov/workforce/default.htm (accessed March
12, 2012).
110
Fries,13.

McMahan 27


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