Birthday profile

Edith Clarke

Edith Clarke, American electrical engineer (died 1959)

Born
February 10, 1883
Died
October 29, 1959
Zodiac sign
Aquarius
Birth year
1883

About Edith Clarke

Edith Clarke was an American electrical engineer and academic. Clarke specialized in electrical power system analysis and is credited with laying the foundation for the smart grid - helping the electric grid of the future grow, remain stable and reliable. She was the first person who used an analyzer to obtain data about power networks. The U.S. Department of Energy calls her efforts “the first step toward smart grid technology. She could be called the Smart Grid’s ‘Founding Mother.’”. She wrote the textbook used by power engineers for decades titled Circuit Analysis of A-C Power Systems. Clarke's legacy includes being the first woman to be professionally employed as an electrical engineer in the United States and the first female professor of electrical engineering in the country. In 1918, Clarke enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the following year she became the first woman to earn an M.S. in electrical engineering from MIT.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Edith Clarke was born

Edith Clarke was born in 1883. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlineBrooklyn Bridge opens after 14 years of construction
  • Technology milestoneFirst standardized time zones adopted
  • World population~1.43B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderChester A. Arthur
  • U.S. population52.8M

1883 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Edith Clarke's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18832026
Population52.8M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.