Women of Steel and Stone: 22 Inspirational Architects, Engineers, and Landscape Designers

Gr 6–8—These brief portraits provide basic information about the women's backgrounds and their successes. There are many shared features in their stories. Each individual had a passionate interest in building and designing that emerged at an early age, when she was willing to do things most ordinary girls didn't do. They all had strong family support to pursue their interests, but faced resistance in the workplace. Each woman had a firm belief that she could succeed on her own merits and a willingness to work hard to pursue her goals. While these shared features are briefly mentioned in the introduction, and readers can be challenged to find the many parallels among the stories, Lewis does not discuss the impact of race, poverty, and gender on the women's careers. Instead, there is an emphasis on "firsts"-for example, the first woman architect in America (Louise Bethune), the first woman to speak to the American Society of Civil Engineers (Emily Warren Roebling), and the first African American woman architect to be licensed in New York State (Norma Merrick Sklarek). Despite this focus on specifics, readers who are interested in pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and math will find a much-needed, clearly presented history of women in these fields.—Myra Zarnowski, City University of New York