Elmina Wilson
(1870-1918)
Elmina Wilson (1870–1918) was the first American woman to complete a four-year degree in civil engineering. She went on to earn the first master's degree in the field and then became the first woman professor to teach engineering at Iowa State University (ISU). Her first project was as an assistant on the design of the Marston Water Tower on the ISU campus. After teaching for a decade at the school, she moved to New York City to enter private practice. Wilson worked with the James E. Brooks Company, skyscraper design firm Purdy and Henderson, and the John Severn Brown Company.
Early life
Elmina Tessa Wilson was born on 29 September 1870 in Harper, Keokuk County, Iowa to Olive (née Eaton) and John C. Wilson. She was the second-to-the-youngest daughter in a family of five other siblings, Warren, Fanny, Olive, Anna, and Alda. In 1892, she graduated from Iowa State University (ISU) with the first four-year civil engineering degree awarded any woman from an American university. In 1894, Elmina graduated with a master's degree in civil engineering from ISU, simultaneously with sister Alda's graduation with a bachelor's in the same field. Both sisters were members of Pi Beta Phi women's fraternity and staunch supporters of both women's education and suffrage.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q27279156. VIAF identifies the subject as 4403523. The Library of Congress control number is n2008036288. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1870, 1918, 1892 and 1894.
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This entry incorporates text from “Elmina Wilson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.