Ruth Gordon Schnapp in 1984.
Courtesy of the Schnapp Family
Unlike many students, Ruth Gordon Schnapp loved solving math problems and savored her math homework. In a 2006 interview for the Society of Women Engineers, Ruth explained, “In college, I saved my math homework for dessert, because that was the most fun.” Her passion for math led her to embark on a structural engineering career that included building safer schools and hospitals.
Ruth’s father, Solomon Gordon, immigrated to America from Lithuania in 1900. After working his way across Europe to Scotland, he boarded a ship for the long trip across the Atlantic Ocean. Finally in America, Gordon sent word to his fiancée, Lea Yoffe, who was waiting in Lithuania. Lea soon joined him, and the newlyweds eventually settled in Dallas, where Gordon worked as a candy maker. Eight years later, Ruth’s older sister, Clara, was born. The family moved to Seattle when Clara was 10 years old, and 8 years after that, Ruth was born on September 19, 1926.
Ruth excelled in school. While in first grade, a teacher coached Ruth in English and math during lunch hours. This allowed Ruth to skip the remainder of the school year and advance to second grade. Ruth also skipped seventh grade, so she entered Queen Anne High School when she was just 12 years old. She loved math, music, and Latin classes. The country was in the midst of World War II, and the government needed people who were good at math and physics. Ruth was placed in an experimental advanced math class in which she studied trigonometry, algebra, and statistics. These special studies fueled Ruth’s interest in math.
Ruth’s other love was piano, and she played with the choir and orchestra all through high school. At her graduation, in a huge auditorium, she played George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” accompanied by the orchestra. After the performance, she dreamed of becoming a concert pianist. But, as she explained in 2009, her parents warned her that “you never can tell what’s going to happen. You have to study something for which you can make a living.”
In 1942, society typically told young girls they should be preparing themselves for marriage and having children, not thinking about how to support a family, so Ruth’s parents were unique. “At that time, it was very unusual for a man to believe that women should be treated equally as men and have a higher education. Especially a man like my father, a streetcar man,” Ruth explained. She thought, Well, I better do something else. I’ll be an engineer. I have no idea what they do, but I know that they use math.
Ruth’s mom ran into a friend who told her that her son had just received a scholarship to MIT. Ruth’s mom suggested that Ruth apply for scholarships too. Ruth applied to MIT, Purdue, and Stanford—all well known for their engineering programs. “When I wrote to Stanford, I didn’t even know where it was,” she explained. “When they accepted me, I had to find out where it was. I was required to take the Stanford-Binet IQ test and got number one on it.”
During the summer breaks when Ruth returned to Seattle, she worked for the aerospace and defense corporation Boeing. Her first year, she was a troubleshooter in the engineering department. Her second summer at Boeing, she worked on changes to the B-17 bomber. Ruth laughed as she recalled her duties, “You laid on the ground on your hands and knees … and crawl around in these … templates. They were metal, and they had paint on them, and you have to scrape off the paint and then make the change. We worked nine and a half hours a day, hands and feet.”
On August 14, 1945, the Japanese surrendered, ending World War II, and Ruth sang in the streets with all the Boeing employees. The next day the Boeing personnel department sent all the women employed in so-called male jobs to take a typing job with the company for lower pay or else quit. Ruth thought that was outrageous. With only four or five weeks left before she went back to school, she became the slowest typist that they ever had—just to spite Boeing and its sexist work practices.
On the first day of classes at Stanford, there were 15 women enrolled. By the second year, only three remained. One day during Ruth’s second year at college, she learned of a campus-wide announcement that women had been seen in “inappropriate clothing” below the library. Ruth and two of her female classmates soon discovered they were the offenders. They had to wear jeans to their field classes, which were held late in the afternoon, and they had no time to change into “proper” attire before dinner. Ruth wrote a letter to the editor of the school newspaper, saying, “Well, we’re doing forging, foundry, and welding, and if the university wants to pay for our cleaning bills, we’d be glad to change clothes.”
The next Monday, posted all over campus and in the daily newspaper was a notice that said that women were to wear appropriate clothes, except for those in certain specified courses.
Ruth was the only women to graduate from Stanford in 1948 with a degree in civil engineering. The other remaining woman in the engineering program graduated with electrical engineering degrees. Before graduation, a professor called them into his office separately. He wanted to know if they were really serious about engineering. After Ruth responded that of course she was serious, he sighed and said, “Well … women.”
Other male professors were more supportive; they mentored Ruth and helped her to secure scholarships to get into graduate school. There, Ruth did well in civil and industrial engineering. She had heard of civil engineering when she was younger, but she had no idea what civil engineers did. Lillian Gilbreth was in the process of making the profession of industrial engineering well known. But what really interested Ruth were earthquakes, which led her to pursue a master’s degree in structural engineering, a division of civil engineering. Structural engineering concentrates on the basic components of a structure, such as beams, columns, beam-column joints, and shear walls. Proper analysis and design of these components are essential to ensuring a bridge or building will be safe and will not collapse in an earthquake.
One night, while Ruth was in graduate school, a friend invited her (along with 22 other classmates) to his parents’ house for dinner. It was a very elegant home with a surprising 13 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms. Ruth soon discovered that the house was the very same one in which Lillian Gilbreth, the famous industrial engineer, had grown up! The boy’s parents took a liking to Ruth and they became friends. Ruth would stop by the house and visit for a few minutes on her way to classes.
One day, Ruth went around back of the house and noticed a man working under his car. When he stood up, Ruth faced the handsomest man she had ever seen. After a few months of dating, he suggested that they fly to Reno and get married. When Ruth told her friend (the owner of the house) about the plan, her friend insisted that they be married in her house instead. So, Ruth and Michael Schnapp were married in Lillian Gilbreth’s old house.
When Ruth began looking for a job, she soon learned to use only her initials on applications because employers never responded when she used her first name, which exposed her as a woman. At several companies, secretaries flat-out told her as she walked in the door, “We don’t hire women engineers.” Finally, Isadore Thompson, head of a San Francisco structural engineering office, hired Ruth. He told her that he didn’t care if she was green, just so long as she could do the job.
Ruth was hired on a Friday, and she was asked to start that Monday to work on building a hospital in Southern California. This hospital incorporated the new technology of welded fastenings, in which the metal is melted during building construction to produce a stronger and more reliable joint or connection. When she returned home that night, Ruth complained to her husband that she didn’t know anything about welding. Relieving her fears and showing his support, Michael reassured Ruth that they had all weekend to learn.
That first job with Isadore Thompson was an important stepping stone for Ruth that led to work at other engineering firms in both design and construction, including the Bechtel Corporation. While at Bechtel, Ruth noticed that male engineers hired after her with exactly the same credentials were paid more than her. When she asked her (male) boss about this, he explained that those men had families to support (as if she didn’t), and that her career was somehow optional.
Ruth noted other instances of discrimination against women: “One of my friends—she was the first woman civil engineer— got a job with an oil company,” she recalled. “And at that time, men were given automobiles to go from the office to the place where they were working. Well, Jessie, she was given a bicycle.”
One day at Bechtel, a colleague asked Ruth if she wanted to work for the state of California. The only thing Ruth needed to work for the state was to take the exam to become a state-certified civil engineer; she passed. Ruth worked for the state of California for 29 years, designing and constructing school buildings to make them more resistant to earthquakes. Ruth had to be constantly creative to construct safe buildings in ways that blended with the architecture. Speaking in 2009, she said, “I was in charge. They might have hated it, but they had to be nice to me.” She also insisted her crews fix all structural problems to existing buildings, to bring them into compliance with current building codes.
Six years after receiving her civil engineering license, Ruth decided to try for her structural engineering license. To qualify for that license, one must already be a licensed civil engineer, have worked for a minimum of three years under the supervision of a licensed structural engineer, and pass a grueling 16-hour exam. Only 25 percent of candidates pass the first time they take the exam.
The night before the test, Ruth was awake all night taking care of her son, Michael, who had a temperature of 104 degrees. In a 2006 interview, Ruth explained how she felt after the test, “I don’t think I passed. I was kind of sleepy. I didn’t know if I have the energy to do it again. It was so tough!” Ruth passed the test and in doing so became the first woman licensed structural engineer in the state of California. It would be another 20 years before another woman would pass that same exam.
“It’s a very rewarding profession because you know that you’re doing something for humanity, because engineering deals with safety. Every branch of engineering deals with safety.”
“I really loved structural engineering,” Ruth said, “especially out in the field.” Her position required that she travel a seven-county, 200-mile-radius area of Southern California, checking every public school, hospital, or any construction or reconstruction. Some of Ruth’s more high-profile projects were the San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco Asian Art Museum, San Quentin Prison, Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco General Hospital, and the Marin General Hospital.
In the 2006 interview, Ruth recounted how one day a crusty old construction superintendent told her that he liked working with her, because when he would ask her a question, she would answer. Apparently, the guy who worked the job before her didn’t. With that approval, Ruth said, she knew, “I’ve made it! I’ve made it!”
Ruth has avid interests outside of math and engineering. When she and Mike first married, they both agreed that they loved boats, bought a 26-foot-long sailboat, and started racing. When Mike was recalled to active duty during the Korean War, Ruth became skipper. No men wanted to race on her boat, so she assembled a team of women. Every day after work, the women would practice, back and forth through the marina. On race day, there was a lot of press about the “all-girl” sail team, which sailed past two all-male crews.
Due to her commitment to the sport for over 40 years, in 2001 Ruth received the Yachtsman of the Year Award from the Pacific Inter-Club Yacht Association. Ruth, always going back to her engineering, jokingly pointed out that her sailboat was constructed in accordance with the same regulations as the Earthquake Safety for the Public School Buildings.
Ruth summed up her feelings about her work in the 2006 interview. “It’s a very rewarding profession because you know that you’re doing something for humanity, because engineering deals with safety,” she said. “Every branch of engineering deals with safety.” Ruth has talked to students at a long list of schools. When guest speaking in 2009, she said, “I became very much interested in helping women and encouraging women to be sure to study math and science, because you never can tell when you’re going to need it.”
Ruth is now retired and living in San Francisco with her three children and grandchildren, and she enjoys knitting sweaters for her whole crew.
The Art of Construction: Projects and Principles for Beginning Engineers & Architects by Mario Salvadori (Chicago Review Press, 2000)
Changing Our World: True Stories of Women Engineers by Sybil E. Hatch (American Society of Civil Engineers, 2006)
Civil Engineering and the Science of Structures (Engineering in Action) by Andrew Solway (Crabtree Publishing, 2012)