Women in industry and innovation

RSA Events

Join our expert panel at RSA House and online to explore the extraordinary life of Dame Caroline Haslett and her inspirational legacy trailblazing a path for women in innovation and industry.

A suffragette and women’s equality campaigner, Dame Caroline Haslett championed the role of women in mainstream employment and their release from domestic drudgery through education, training, and the application of new technologies.

A woman of many pioneering firsts, Dame Caroline was the founder and first director of the Electrical Association for Women in 1924. She was also a member of the Central Electricity Authority, formed to run the industry under national ownership. From 1941-1957, she served as the first female member of the RSA Council and as Vice-President.

In 1941, she delivered a paper to the RSA entitled 'Women in Industry', addressing the increasing contribution of women in national industrial life, and appealing for a revision of social attitudes and the removal of obstacles to women in employment.

"I see in this new world a great opportunity for women to free themselves from the shackles of the past and to enter into a new heritage made possible by the gifts of nature which science has opened up to us." Dame Caroline Haslett

Chair

• Henrietta Heald is the author of Magnificent Women and their Revolutionary Machines.

Speakers

• Dawn Bonfield is Professor of Practice in Engineering for Sustainable Development at King's College London and Founder of Towards Vision.
• Yasmin Ali is a chemical engineer, dedicated to developing renewable energy projects and author of Power Up: An Engineer’s Adventures into Sustainable Energy.

Anne Locker is the library and archives manager at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) who has worked with engineering archives for more than 25 years. She has written about the history of women in engineering and contributed to Wikipedia and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

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