Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the 110th birthday of Mary G. Ross, the first Native American woman engineer. Over the course of her five-decade career, Ross achieved many firsts and made major contributions to the aerospace industry.
Here’s what to know about the trailblazer, born on Aug. 9, 1908, who opened the doors for future female engineers in the field.
Who Was Mary G. Ross?
Great-great granddaughter to Chief John Ross of the Cherokee Nation, Mary G. Ross was born in the small town of Park Hill in Oklahoma. Raised with the Cherokee value of learning, Ross pursued a path considered nontraditional for women. After receiving a degree in math from Northeastern State College, Ross taught math and science until she returned to school to earn her master’s in math from Colorado State College of Education.
What were her contributions to aerospace?
In 1942, Lockheed Missiles and Space Company hired Ross as mathematician. But after a manager recognized her talent, Ross was sent to UCLA to earn a classification in aeronautical engineering. Lockheed then rehired her as their first female engineer. Ross would go on to work on major projects such as the Agena rocket, which was a crucial step in the Apollo program to land on the moon. She also was a part of SkunkWorks, a top-secret 40-member think tank where she was the only women aside from the secretary. Ross’ work there involved developing initial design concepts for interplanetary space travel, including flyby missions to Venus and Mars.
“Often at night there were four of us working until 11 p.m.,” she once said according to Google. “I was the pencil pusher, doing a lot of research. My state of the art tools were a slide rule and a Frieden computer. We were taking the theoretical and making it real.”
Mary G. Ross Courtesy of Evelyn Ross McMillan/Google Doodle
How did she open the door for women?
Ross also devoted herself to encouraging women and Native Americans into careers in the field of STEM. She was a fellow of the Society of Women Engineers, where she established a scholarship in her name to support future female engineers and technologists. To support fellow Native Americans, Ross also worked closely with the American Indian Science and Engineering Society and the Council of Energy Resource Tribes to develop their educational programs.
According to the National Science Foundation, only 0.1% of those working in science and engineering are female American Indians. And according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 8.1% of employed aerospace engineers are women.
Mary G. Ross died on April 29, 2008 at the age of 99.
Thursday’s Doodle depicts Ross’ portrait over a blueprint of the Agena rocket with the Earth and stars in the background.
Mary G. Ross, the first American Indian female engineer, and a highly regarded pioneer in her industry, is the subject of a Google Doodle honoring her 110th birthday.
The contributions of Mary G. Ross to the aerospace industry “include the development of concepts for interplanetary space travel, manned and unmanned earth-orbiting flights, and orbiting satellites,” Google noted.
Google called Mary G. Ross “a pioneer who reached for the stars and whose legacy continues to inspire others to do the same.” Mary Golda Ross was born on August 9, 1908 and is regarded as the first American Indian woman engineer.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Mary G. Ross Was the Great-Great Granddaughter of a Cherokee Nation Chief
Mary G. Ross is of Native American heritage as she is descended from a Cherokee Nation chief.
Ross was the “great-great granddaughter to Chief John Ross of the Cherokee Nation,” Google wrote on August 9, 2018.
Chief John Ross, according to The Smithsonian, “fought to preserve his nation from white settlers’ incursions—and later was forced to lead his people along the march that became known as the Trail of Tears.”
His great-great-granddaughter became her own force to be reckoned with.
According to The Smithsonian, in 1958, Ross – whose full name was Mary Golda Ross – “stumped the panelists on ‘What’s My Line?’ It took the actors Arlene Francis and Jack Lemmon, journalist Dorothy Kilgallen and publisher Bennet Cerf, celebrity panelists of the popular television game show, quite a while to figure out her M.O.”
According to The Smithsonian, Ross reconnected with her Native American roots only later in her life, but when she did she was known for “mentoring and supporting others in her field and calling attention to her heritage.”
When the Smithsonian opened the National Museum of the American Indian in 2004, Ross attended in ancestral dress and “left a bequest of more than $400,000 to the museum upon her death in 2008,” The Smithsonian Magazine reported.
2. She Had a Love for Rocket Science & Astronomy
According to Google, Mary G. Ross had math skills that “were surpassed only by her passion for aviation and the sciences. After teaching in Oklahoma for 9 years, she attended the University of Northern Colorado to pursue her master’s degree and love for astronomy and rocket science.”
During World War II, Ross “was hired by Lockheed Aircraft Corporation as a mathematician. It was there that she was encouraged to earn her professional certification in aeronautical engineering from UCLA in 1949, after which she broke new ground as one of the 40 founding members of the top-secret Skunk Works team,” Google wrote.
Her work on the team “included developing initial design concepts for interplanetary space travel (including flyby missions to Venus and Mars) and satellites including the Agena rocket (depicted in today’s Doodle),” wrote Google.
“Often at night there were four of us working until 11 p.m.,” she later recounted, Google noted.
“I was the pencil pusher, doing a lot of research. My state of the art tools were a slide rule and a Frieden computer. We were taking the theoretical and making it real.”
According to a biography of Ross, “Ross was later to remark that she had been brought up in the Cherokee tradition of equal education for both boys and girls. She was, however, the only girl in her math class, which did not seem to bother her. Indeed, her early interests were math, physics, and science.”
3. Mary G. Ross Was a Pioneer for Women & American Indians Hoping to Pursue Careers in STEM Fields
Mary G. Ross is considered a pioneer both for women and for American Indians interested in STEM fields.
“Leading by example, Ross also opened doors for future generations of women and American Indians by participating in efforts to encourage their pursuits in STEM fields, including being a member and Fellow of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE),” wrote Google.
According to Cherokee.org, Mary Golda Ross had “a lifetime of success in aerospace technology as the first woman engineer for Lockheed Missiles and Space Company.”\
“The accomplishments of Mary Golda Ross epitomize the Cherokee spirit,” said Chad Smith, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, to Cherokee.org. “This exceptional woman was and will continue to be a great example to each of us. Her ambition and successes exemplify the importance of education and are evidence of the doors that can be opened through higher learning.”
4. A Scholarship Was Established in the Name of Mary G. Ross
Today MEP would like to highlight a Native American engineer named Mary G. Ross. Learn more about her and all of her accomplishments on our Facebook page: https://t.co/EjT21Np0fj pic.twitter.com/OdCpL9EQ2E — Purdue M.E.P. (@PurdueMEP) November 30, 2017
According to Google, there is a scholarship in the name of Mary G. Ross that aims to encourage other women to become engineers.
“In 1992 the SWE established a scholarship in Ross’s name, which aims to support future female engineers and technologists, including Aditi Jain, a current Google Maps engineer,” wrote Google, quoting Jain as saying, “More than money, it gave me confidence. I don’t think I considered myself an engineer until I received the scholarship.”
Cherokee.org reports that Ross “taught school in Oklahoma for nine years. Ross then went on to work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in Washington D.C.”
5. The Family of Mary G. Ross Helped Create the Google Doodle
November is National Native American Heritage month. Mary G. Ross is widely credited as the first female Native American Engineer. pic.twitter.com/uikruX8HWC — USACE HQ (@USACEHQ) November 8, 2017
Google gave “special thanks to both the family of Mary G. Ross and the Society of Women Engineers for their partnerships on this project.”
According to Google, Jeff Ross, nephew of Mary G. Ross, shares his thoughts on his aunt’s legacy:
The Ross family is excited that Google has chosen Mary G. Ross for a Doodle on her 110th birthday. A proud Cherokee woman and the great-great granddaughter of Chief John Ross, Mary is an excellent role model for young women and American Indians everywhere. Her accomplishments are a testament to her determination and love for education. Our hope as a family is that her story inspires young people to pursue a technical career and better the world through science.
Mary G. Ross died in 2008 at the age of 99.
Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the 110th birthday of Mary Golda Ross, a math prodigy who became both the first female and Native American engineer at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, where she helped develop the rocket technology that launched America into space.
Ross was born in Park Hill, Oklahoma, on August 9, 1908, and died nearly 100 years later on April 29, 2008, in Los Altos, California. She was the great-granddaughter of John Ross, the longest-serving chief of the Cherokee Nation. She said her heritage contributed to her academic success.
“I was brought up in the Cherokee tradition of equal education for boys and girls,” Ross said, according to the Cherokee Nation’s website.
After graduating from Northeastern State College in 1928 with a math degree, Ross became a high school teacher for several years.
YouTube screenshot
A brief spell in the civil service at the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C. followed before she enrolled on a master’s degree course in math at the University of Northern Colorado, according to Cherokee Phoenix. She took an interest in astronomy and read heavily about space.
“Math was more fun than anything else. It was always a game to me,” Ross once said, according to an article published by the University of Michigan’s engineering center.
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“I was the only female in my class. I sat on one side of the room and the guys on the other side of the room. I guess they didn’t want to associate with me. But I could hold my own with them and sometimes did better.”
She also said: “To function efficiently in today’s world, you need math. The world is so technical, if you plan to work in it, a math background will let you go farther and faster.”
In 1942, she joined Lockheed as a mathematician and worked on the P-38 Lightning fighter plane design until the end of World War II, when the company put her on a course at the University of California Los Angeles to get a professional certificate in engineering in 1948. Then came the space race.
Ross was asked by Lockheed to join its top-secret think tank “Skunk Works,” which assisted NASA in its aerospace engineering. She was one of just 40 engineers given the honor and helped send the U.S. into space, culminating in the 1969 moon landing, a seminal moment in American history.
According to The Smithsonian Magazine, Ross helped write NASA’s Planetary Flight Handbook, the agency’s space travel guide, and contributed to planning for flights to Mars. “Much of Ross’s work will never be known because it was—and still is—classified,” The Smithsonian article says.
After retiring from Lockheed in 1973, Ross dedicated the rest of her life to advocacy for Native Americans, including making opportunities for the next generation of engineers from the community.
When she died, Ross left a substantial donation to the The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
You can see Ross in this 1958 episode of What’s My Line?
