Ruth Gordon Schnapp, Structural Engineer and Advocate
In 1959, Ruth Gordon Schnapp (1926 – 2014) became the first woman to earn her structural engineering license in California. She specialized in designing for earthquakes. “To insure safety of public buildings, I think that’s probably the most important thing that I do, as far as the public is concerned,” Gordon Schnapp said after retiring from her 41-year career.
In addition to her licensing “first,” Gordon Schnapp became the first female member of the Structural Engineer’s Association of Northern California in 1953; the first female president of the Bay Area Engineering Council in 1982; and the first woman to receive the Tau Beta Pi’s Eminent Engineer Award in 1995.
Born in Seattle to Russian immigrants, Gordon showed an early talent for piano and arithmetic. She described her father as a “streetcar man” and a feminist. She said, “[H]e felt that women should be treated equally as men, and have a higher education.” While she dreamed of being a concert pianist, her father suggested she also study something that she could use to support herself, should that not work out.
Gordon chose civil engineering. She applied to Stanford’s School of Engineering and was accepted with a scholarship. “It was during the war, and Stanford admitted more women than usual,” Gordon Schnapp recalled in 2006. During her first two summers in college, Gordon returned to Seattle and worked for Boeing. Her second summer she worked on B-17 bombers, “working on change orders for the B-17, full-scale.”
Gordon Schnapp recalled, “[T]hat was the summer that included VJ Day, victory over Japan, and everybody was out in the streets singing and having a great time. And the next day the Personnel Department sent people — all of the women at Boeing that were working in the so-called male jobs, to take a typing job at lower pay or quit.” Although Gordon found this “outrageous,” she needed the paycheck. She finished out the summer at Boeing as “the slowest typist that they had.”
Gordon spent her third year in college at the University of Washington so she could live at home and help care for her mother who had had a stroke. She was the only woman in engineering at that university. At Stanford, she remembered there being 15 women in her first engineering courses, but only she and one woman in Electrical Engineering graduated, in 1947.
Civil Engineering degree in hand, Gordon decided to continue her studies at Stanford to become a structural engineer. She was especially interested in earthquake engineering. Gordon won two scholarships from the American Society of Civil Engineers and completed her Master of Science degree in Structural Engineering in 1949.
That same year, Gordon married Michael Schnapp, a retired Air Force pilot who had earned a mechanical engineering degree. Gordon Schnapp applied for many positions, but she was often told, “We don’t hire women.” It took until April for her to find a position, when she met “one man by the name of Isadore Thompson, who didn’t care if I was green or if anybody was green, just so you can do the job.”
During this time, Gordon Schnapp and her husband fell in love with sailing and racing sailboats. When her husband was recalled to active duty during the Korean War, Gordon Schnapp put together an all-woman crew and continued racing. She and her teammates endured many misogynistic comments as a result.
After her husband returned, the couple had three children. They also built a 33-foot sailboat in their basement. In the 1950s, Gordon Schnapp worked for Bechtel and Western Knapp. In 1953, she earned her state civil engineering license. She went to work for the State Division of Architecture Structural Safety Section, monitoring construction and designing schools for earthquake resistance.
In 1959, Gordon Schnapp passed the 16-hour state exam to become the first female licensed structural engineer in California. There were 800 structural engineers state wide at the time. Asked how she juggled a full-time job with three children, Schnapp explained, “Well, I hired housekeepers. You know, we were a two-income family, so we could afford that.”
Reflecting on her career in 2006, Gordon Schnapp said that except for isolated instances, being one of—or the—only woman in the office didn’t hold her back professionally. Still, she experienced discrimination. After 29 years with the state, and after the retirement of her mentor and boss, Schnapp experienced gender-based harassment. This transgression was compounded when her complaint was not appropriately addressed. “I still liked the field, but it just was no fun anymore,” she said of her job.
She stayed on until the City of San Francisco announced it would award ten percent of all its work to women. Gordon Schnapp took early retirement and started her own firm, Pegasus Engineering, in 1984. “And I never had to go out and look for work,” she said.
At Pegasus, Gordon Schnapp continued her work for the state on earthquake resistance for schools and hospitals as a consultant. She also worked on the structural designs for high-profile public buildings, including the Palace of the Legion of Honor and San Francisco’s Main Library. The library, which opened in 1996, is engineered to resist earthquakes up to a magnitude of 8.3.
The building’s structural design is described on the library’s website: “The entire structure rests on 142 base isolators, made with rubber layers laminated between stainless steel and stiffened with an internal lead core to dampen vibrations. In the event of a shock, an 18-inch space around the circumference of the building allows the structure to move independently from the ground.” It was the first use of base isolators in a public building in San Francisco. The library’s architects were Pei Cobb Freed & Partners and Simon Martin-Vegue Winkelstein & Moris.
In addition to her design work, Gordon Schnapp constantly advocated for women’s equality. She frequently gave talks and encouraged girls and young women to study math, science, and engineering; she twice resigned from the national Society of Women Engineers (in 1960 and in 1980) to protest their inadequate support of equal rights for women; she barricaded the Pacific Stock Exchange with members of the local chapter of the National Organization for Women in support of the Equal Rights Amendment; and she spoke up when she witnessed or experienced discrimination, even when it was difficult to do so.
Ruth Gordon Schnapp retired from engineering in 2001. She died at age 87 in 2014.
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Sources:
Ruth Gordon: An interview conducted by Deborah Rice for the Society of Women Engineers, March 15, 2006. Interview LOH001952.15 at the Walter P. Reuther Library and Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.
“Structural Engineer, 28, Busy as a Mother, Too,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 21, 1955: 14.
“Ruth Gordon Schnapp,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 19, 2014: 25.
“Woman Wins Coveted Job,” The Times-Herald (Vallejo, California), Mar 19, 1959: 4