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Mary Golda Ross (August 9, 1908 – April 29, 2008) was the first Native American female engineer. [2] She was also the first female engineer in the history of the Lockheed Corporation. [2] She worked at Lockheed from 1942 until her retirement in 1973, where she was best remembered for her work on aerospace design. [3]
- Overview
- Cherokee family and education
- Career and space engineering
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Mary Golda Ross, (born August 9, 1908, Park Hill, Oklahoma, U.S.—died April 29, 2008, Los Altos, California), Cherokee mathematician who was the first Native woman to work as an engineer in the U.S. space program. She made history as the first female and only Native member of a highly secret team of the Advanced Development Projects, also known as ...
Ross was born to Mary Henrietta Moore Ross and William Wallace Ross, Jr., both citizens of the Cherokee Nation. She was the great-great-granddaughter of John Ross, the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation who in the 1830s spearheaded legal actions fighting the Indian Removal Act. His efforts did not succeed, and the U.S. federal government under Pres. Andrew Jackson forcibly evicted the Cherokees from Georgia and compelled them to travel to present-day Oklahoma in what would later come to be known as the Trail of Tears.
So that Ross could attend school, her family sent her to live with her grandparents in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the former capital of the Cherokee Nation. She had several Native teachers during her time in primary school and high school, including her high-school math teacher, who was Cherokee. Ross excelled in math and science as a student, and in 1928 she earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Northeastern State Teachers College (now Northeastern State University) in Tahlequah.
In 1941 Ross moved to California, just before the United States entered World War II. It had been difficult for women to find work as mathematicians and scientists in industrial laboratories, but the war increased the need for their skills, which provided Ross with an opportunity to work outside of education. In 1942 she was hired by Lockheed as a mathematician, where she concentrated on improving the design—and, specifically, the aerodynamics—of the P-38 Lightning, a fighter plane used throughout the war. After World War II ended, and men who had been part of the war effort returned to civilian life, many women struggled to keep their jobs. However, Ross’s abilities convinced Lockheed supervisors to retain her. They arranged for her to attend the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) to obtain a certification in aeronautical engineering, and in 1949 she became a registered professional engineer. That made her, by many accounts, the first Native woman to become an engineer.
In 1952 Ross became one of the original members, and the only female member, of Lockheed’s Advanced Development Projects unit, popularly known as Skunk Works, which became the American aerospace industry’s leading military aircraft developer. Although the breadth of Ross’s contributions remain a secret, it is known that some of her work included creating design concepts for interplanetary travel, developing operational guidelines for spacecraft and orbiting satellites, and theorizing about the logistics of potential space travel to Mars and Venus. As Cold War tensions developed in the wake of World War II, Ross worked on several missile-related projects at the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company. She retired from Lockheed in 1973.
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As a key member of the Los Angeles chapter of the Society of Women Engineers, Ross was known for her commitment to improving educational opportunities for women and for all Native people, especially in the field of engineering. As she recalled in an interview with Laurel M. Sheppard of Lash Publications, “There is a lot of ancient wisdom from India...
Learn about Mary Golda Ross, the first Native woman to work as an engineer in the U.S. space program and a member of the Skunk Works team at Lockheed. She contributed to space exploration and aerospace engineering and was featured on a commemorative coin.
- Timothy Lake
Learn how Mary Golda Ross, a Cherokee woman who taught math in Oklahoma, became a space-travel engineer at Lockheed's Skunk Works. She worked on the P-38 Lightning, satellites, missiles, and the Apollo program.
- Malloryk
Learn about the life and achievements of Mary Golda Ross, a Cherokee woman who worked for Lockheed Aircraft Company and contributed to space exploration. She was honored with a coin, a school, a statue, and a museum exhibit.
Aug 9, 2018 · Who was Mary G. Ross? She was another ‘hidden figure,’ a mathematician and engineer whose role in America’s space age is largely unknown. Her life’s work is celebrated in the August 9, 2018, Google Doodle. Born in 1908, Ross was a Native American and member of the Cherokee Nation.
Nov 26, 2023 · Learn about the life and legacy of Mary Golda Ross, the first Native American woman to be an engineer and a pioneer of the space age. She worked on projects such as the P-38 Lightning, the Polaris missile, and the Egina rocket, and inspired young people to pursue STEM careers.
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Learn about the life and achievements of Mary Golda Ross (Cherokee), who worked on the Skunk Works and the Agena rocket for the space program. See her portrait by Cherokee artist America Meredith and the Google Doodle honoring her.
