As engineering disciplines evolved in Europe in the 1700s and 1800s, formal schools were established to teach the needed curriculum. European universities did not admit women. The engineering schools established in the USA in the 1800s also did not admit women. In spite of these barriers, women did manage to contribute to engineering and science. However, many of the early women “engineers” were not educated as engineers in the sense one would expect today. In 1893, the official records only documented three women as having received engineering degrees in the USA. After the education barrier was surmounted, the next barrier was membership in professional societies, which also did not welcome women. During World War I and World War II, women were encouraged to enter the engineering workforce but that encouragement ended when the wars ended. After World War II, however, women were not quite as ready to follow societal norms as they had been after World War I. They established the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) where they finally found a place within the engineering ecosystem where they were welcome.