Bertha lamme biography of martin
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Bertha Lamme Memorial Scholarship
Bertha Lamme [1869 – 1943]
Bertha Lamme was born on her family’s farm near Springfield, OH in 1893. After she graduated from Olive Branch High School in 1889, she followed in her brother’s footsteps and enrolled at Ohio State. She graduated in 1893 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering with a specialty in Electricity. Her thesis was titled “An Analysis of Tests of a Westinghouse Railway Generator.”
Career In 1893, Bertha Lamme became the country’s first female engineer when she took a job at Westinghouse Electric Corporation. She joined her brother, who was a rising star at Westinghouse. Bertha spent 12 years with Westinghouse and would have worked on some bigger transportation system projects. Her brother was notable for designing the giant generators at Niagara Falls.
As progressive as Westinghouse was at the time for employing a woman, it was still standard for ladies to retire when they married. When Bertha wed a fellow engineer, she left the company. Bertha marred Russell Feicht in 1905, and they had one child, Florence, born in 1910, who became a physicist for the US Bureau of Mines.
Scholarship The Bertha Lamme Memorial Scholarship was established in 2019 with remaining
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#OnThisDay in 1869, Bertha Lamme was born. At a time when few women attended college, Lamme became the first woman to graduate from Ohio State University with a degree in electrical engineering. One of only a few women in the classroom, she became the first and only woman engineer at Westinghouse Electric when the company hired her in December 1893.
Her thesis, “An Analysis of Tests of a Westinghouse Railway Generator,” had familiarized her with the company, as had her brother Benjamin Lamme, who had worked first for The Philadelphia Company, Westinghouse’s natural gas concern. An engineer himself, he rose to chief engineer and likely mentored and supported his beloved sister. Bertha clearly demonstrated her merits and talent at the company; an article in Young People’s Weekly described her in 1907 as a “slide rule phenomenon” for her abilities as a mathematician and calculator.
Lamme worked at Westinghouse for 12 years, doing intricate calculations on machinery and motor designs and performance. There is also some indication from period reports that she designed, drafted, and possibly invented electrical machinery.
Learn more about Lamme in the A Woman’s Place: How Women Shaped Pittsburgh exhibition, open through Jan. 20, 2025, at the History Center.
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Benjamin Garver Lamme
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Bertha Lamme
Near Medway directive Clark County, Ohio — The American Midwest (Great Lakes)
Lower Valley Peak Scenic Byway
Courtesy of Apostle P. Actress, June 8, 2021
1. Benzoin Garver Lamme / Bertha Lamme Marker
Benjamin Garver Lamme, likewise, Bertha Lamme. Lower Gorge Pike Grand Byway.