Title: Elizabeth Gregory MacGill "Elsie" - Aeronautical engineer and Feminist
Place: Montréal (?), Québec. Date: Apr. 1938
PHOTOGRAPHER: Polyphoto
National Archives of Canada, negative no. PA-148380

In 1979, the president of the recently established organisation Women in Science and Engineering, Claudette Lassonde, contacted the 74-year old Elsie Gregory MacGill to solicit her support for the new group. The reason was obvious: "Ms. MacGill," wrote Lassonde, " you are the Number One Canadian woman engineer to look up to." This statement reflects two major themes in the life of Elsie MacGill: on the one hand, engineering, technology and industry ;on the other, the women's movement and feminism.

The word "first" appears often in an account of Elsie MacGill's career. In 1927, she was the first woman to graduate in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto. She was soon hired as an engineer by the Austin Automobile Company in Michigan, and became interested in aeronautics when her employer entered the aircraft industry. MacGill then enrolled in the University of Michigan, and in 1929 was the first woman to graduate from that school's master's program in aeronautical engineering.

Illness, however, prevented MacGill from entering a full-time career until 1934. In that year she was hired as an aeronautical engineer by Fairchild Aircraft Limited in Montreal. MacGill was then engaged as the chief aeronautical engineer by the Canadian Car and Foundry Company, where she designed the Maple Leaf Trainer (possibly the first airplane designed by a woman). During World War II, MacGill was the engineer in charge of Canadian production of the Hawker Hurricane fighter plane at Fort William, Ontario, where her staff at peak numbered 4,500. In 1943, MacGill entered business for herself, opening an office in Toronto as a consulting aeronautical engineer. When she died in 1980, her position as a leading aeronautical engineer had been long established.

A propensity for firsts ran in the MacGill family. Elsie MacGill's mother, Helen Gregory MacGill, became the first woman judge in British Columbia. The elder MacGill had been an advocate of woman suffrage since the outset of her career as a newspaper reporter in the early 1890's. No doubt the younger MacGill was raised to believe that women and men should be equal in society, and her mother's example likely influenced her decision to enter the traditionally male field of engineering. Elsie MacGill also took the then unusual step of keeping her maiden name when she married in 1943, perhaps as an acknowledgment of her mother's influence on her life. Indeed, MacGill the daughter wrote and published in 1955 a widely read biography of her mother, My Mother the Judge.

Elsie MacGill was also active in women's organisations and the women's movement. She was a prominent member of the Toronto Business and Professional Women's Club after her move to that city. From the 1950's until the end of her life, MacGill was involved in campaigns for several causes affecting the status of women, such as paid maternity leave, day care facilities and liberalisation of abortion laws.

Among Elsie MacGill's honours and awards are the Gzowski Medal of the Engineering Institute of Canada (1941), the Award for Meritorious Contribution to Engineering from the Society of Women Engineers ( a United States organisation, 1953), and the Order of Canada (1971).

The personal papers of Elsie Gregory MacGill, were donated to the Public Archives of Canada in 1974 and 1983. They date from 1911 to 1983 and are listed under the call number MG 31, K7. There are no access restrictions.