Evolution

While in high school, I chose an elective class in isometric drafting where I became the male instructor’s first female student in 1975. I loved isometric drawing. It proved to be invaluable later in life to readily understand Cezanne’s dictum: “Everything in nature takes its form from the sphere, the cone, and the cylinder.”

Having become proficient in technical drawing might have awarded me a summer internship in an engineering department at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Instead, despite parental protest to the high school vice principal, the work-study opportunity was given to a student in my class name Doug because, the teacher said, “Boys will marry and need to provide for their families. A girl should not take that away.” And, “Girls can draw with a mechanical pencil because they have thin fingers.”

My mother, who was an employee at DEC, arranged for me to be hired into the Temporary Assistant Group (TAG) secretarial pool. I spent two summers in administrative jobs in accounting, reception, a library, and a warehouse before being hired by Digital’s Educational Publishing Group as a technical illustrator. There I learned to design and illustrate instructional books, several of them winning technical publishing awards.

ABOVE: Fig 12 & 13, From Eniac to Univac, Digital Press, 1981
LEFT: From Eniac to Univac, Digital Press, 1981