Elsie MacGill
Elsie MacGill was the first Canadian woman to receive an electrical engineering degree, and was the first female aircraft designer.
Vancouver, British Columbia
Second World War
America may have made the fictional "Rosie the Riveter" famous during the Second World War, but Canada found its own female role model in a real person. Elsie MacGill was the first woman to receive an electrical engineering degree in Canada and the first female aircraft designer in the world. The 35-year-old aeronautical engineer supervised the production of Hawker Hurricane fighter planes at the Canadian Car and Foundry Company, which employed 200 women and produced more than 1,450 aircraft during the war. MacGill became a symbol of Canada's miraculous economic wartime transformation. She was even the subject of a comic book called "Queen of the Hurricanes" that was devoted to her achievements.
Where they served
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