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Diversity Spotlight

Nora Stanton Blatch

Nora Stanton Blatch was born in the United Kingdom on September 30, 1883, to parents William Blatch and Harriot Eaton Stanton. Blatch received her early education from the Horace Mann School in New York, spending the summers back with her family in England. At Horace Mann, she studied Latin and Mathematics.

The family emigrated to the United States in 1902, and Blatch began to study civil engineering at Cornell University. She graduated in 1905 and became the first woman to earn an engineering degree from the school. She found work in the years after graduation with the American Bridge Company and the New York City Board of Water Supply. Nora also joined ASCE as a junior member the year of her graduation. Blatch worked for the Radley Steel Construction Company from 1909 to 1912 as chief draftsman and assistant engineer. In 1914 she began working in architecture and development on Long Island.

Nora’s maternal grandmother was the noted suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and her mother Harriot was involved in campaigning for women’s rights throughout her life. It is fitting, of course, that Nora herself would follow in their footsteps. In 1916, Blatch met all the professional requirements to request full membership with ASCE, but her request was denied on the grounds of her gender. Blatch took out a lawsuit against the society, and ultimately lost. She was heavily involved in political activism for equal rights, serving as President of the Women’s Political Union and contributing to the organization’s publication Women’s Political World. She also participated in campaigns for the Equal Rights Amendment.

Professionally, Blatch continued to work in land development as a real estate developer for the rest of her career. She passed away in Greenwich, Connecticut on January 18, 1971. In 2015, ASCE granted posthumous Fellow status to Nora Stanton Blatch.

When contemporary repairs began on a leaking section of New York City’s Delaware Aqueduct, a custom 22 foot-diameter tunnel boring machine was constructed to dig a bypass tunnel, pump away water, and line the tunnel with concrete. This tunnel will bypass the leaky section of the aqueduct so that it may be taken out of service. The boring machine has been named NORA in Blatch’s honor as a pioneering woman engineer.