engineering

Mabel MacFerran Rockwell

Mabel MacFerran Rockwell is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Mabel MacFerran Rockwell rather than just read about it. In short: Mabel MacFerran Rockwell (1902 – May 27, 1979) was an American electrical engineer and one of the first three female fellows of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE). MacFerran worked for Southern California Edison, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California in Los Angeles, the United States Bureau of Reclamation, and the Lockheed Corporation.

Key takeaways

Mabel MacFerran Rockwell belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Mabel MacFerran Rockwell to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Mabel MacFerran Rockwell from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Mabel MacFerran Rockwell (1902 – May 27, 1979) was an American electrical engineer and one of the first three female fellows of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE). MacFerran worked for Southern California Edison, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California in Los Angeles, the United States Bureau of Reclamation, and the Lockheed Corporation. She contributed significantly to high-voltage power generation and distribution, aeronautical manufacturing research and development, and electrical system integration within facilities. In her later career, she worked on control systems for naval vehicles, including the submarine-launched Polaris missile.

Early life and education Mabel MacFerran was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1902 to Edgar O. and Mabel Alexander MacFerran. Her father was an electrical engineer and her mother an astronomer and mathematician. She was raised in the Quaker tradition. She attended the Germantown Friends School in Germantown, Pennsylvania. While studying at Bryn Mawr College, she had a summer job with the Leeds and Northrup Company, which introduced her to engineering. In 1925, she graduated with a B.S. in science, teaching, and mathematics (Sigma Xi) first in her class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received the Elwell Fellowship to attend Stanford University. There she worked with Professor Harris J. Ryan in the million volt laboratory. She obtained an M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Stanford in 1926.

Career In 1926, MacFerran joined the Southern California Edison Company Limited as an apprentice testman, becoming the technical assistant to the operating engineer in 1928. She specialized in studies of high voltage power transmission and system stability. She made one of the earliest applications of the method of symmetrical components to power systems. Along with Roy B. Ashbrook, Roy Edwin Quanstrom, and Benjamin F. Dengler, MacFerran received U.S. patent 1,889,086 (filed December 30, 1929, granted November 29, 1932) for a "Protective Gap for Electrical Equipment" which became known as the "Serjdetour" telephone protector. In 1932, she became an assistant electrical engineer at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California at Los Angeles. She worked on electrical problems with the Colorado River Aqueduct, including economic and engineering studies for the construction power system and the main transmission system. MacFerran was the only woman to work on the design and installation of the electrical systems, specifically the power generating equipment, for Boulder Dam (later renamed Hoover Dam). She worked on the economic design of the company's transmission for the dam, which was the basis for her prize-winning paper "Power Limits of 220 Kv Transmission Lines" (co-authored with A. A. Kroneberg). She also designed the transmission and distribution systems for the San Joaquin Valley District in California. In 1938, she became the Plant Electrical Engineer for the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation (Lockheed Corporation) and in 1940 became Production Research Engineer. She led a research team that improved spot welding for aircraft production. She then turned her team's focus to the problems of forming sheet metal airplane parts, publishing a series of articles on this research. From 1946 to 1951, she worked at the US Naval Ordnance Test Station as a General Engineer where she eventually worked on electrical features of various classified underwater propulsion and guidance systems. From 1951 to 1953, she was an electrical engineer with the United States Bureau of Reclamation in Sacramento, California and Fresno, California. She was chief of the power section in the San Joaquin Valley district office in Fresno. She undertook various special assignments and consulting work from 1954 until early 1958. In 1958, she went to work for Westinghouse where she designed the electrical control system for the UGM-27 Polaris missile launcher. Despite her work in the field, by 1949 she was advocating for a turn from weapons development to working for peace. In an interview with the LA Times, she said: "We know enough about the atom—now it's time for intelligent men everywhere to develop spiritual values. Americans must halt their pursuit of more technical knowledge and devote their time to the elimination of war by turning from things of the mind to things of the spirit."

Awards, honors and memberships MacFerran became an associate member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) in 1928, one of the first ten women to join the professional association. She became an AIEE member in 1935. In 1948, she became one of the first three female Fellows of AIEE. In 1929 she won the Initial Paper Prize in the AIEE 8th District for her paper "Parallel Operation of Transformers Whose Ratios of Transformation are Unequal." In 1934 she won the AIEE Pacific District prize for "Power Limits of 220 Kv Transmission Lines" with co-author A. A. Kroneberg. In 1958 President Eisenhower named her Woman Engineer of the Year. In 1959, she won the SWE Achievement Award from the Society of Women Engineers "in recognition of her significant contributions to the field of electrical control systems."

Publications "Parallel Operation of Transformers Whose Ratios of Transformation are Unequal", 1930 "Power Limits of 220-Kv Transmission Lines" (with Alex A. Kroneberg), 1934 "Empirical Method of Calculating Corona Loss From High-Voltage Transmission Lines" (with Joseph S. Carroll), 1937 "Empirical Method of Calculating Corona Loss From High-Voltage Transmission Lines" (published discussion with E. C. Starr and author), 1938 "The Development of Aircraft Spotwelding", 1941 "Mechanics of Deep Drawing Sheet Metal Parts" (with Given Brewer), 1942 "Stretch-Forming Contoured Sheet Metal Aircraft Parts" (with T. H. Hazlett), 1942 "Measurements of Drawing Properties of Aluminum Sheet" (with Given A. Brewer), 1942 "Stress-Strain Relationships in Drawing of Materials" (with G. A. Brewer), 1942 "Some Factors Affecting the Drawability of Aluminum Sheets" (with G. A. Brewer and V. N. Krivobok), 1942 "The Effect of Weld Spacing on the Strength of Spot-Welded Joints" (with R. Della-Vedowa), 1942 "Electrical Power in Aircraft", 1944

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mabel MacFerran Rockwell

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mabel MacFerran Rockwell claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Mabel MacFerran Rockwell before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Mabel MacFerran Rockwell ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Mabel MacFerran Rockwell

In research: Mabel MacFerran Rockwell appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Mabel MacFerran Rockwell in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Mabel MacFerran Rockwell is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1902 births, 1979 deaths, 20th-century American engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mabel MacFerran Rockwell outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Mabel MacFerran Rockwell in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Mabel MacFerran Rockwell means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Mabel MacFerran Rockwell out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Mabel MacFerran Rockwell in simple terms?

Why does Mabel MacFerran Rockwell matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Mabel MacFerran Rockwell?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Mabel MacFerran Rockwell.