Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Bertha Lamme – A Charged Life. America’s First Woman Electrical Engineer


Bertha Lamme – A Charged Life
America’s First Woman Electrical Engineer
By John A. Dalles

Bertha Lamme at her drafting board at Westinghouse

Bertha Avanella Lamme was descended from pre-Revolutionary American stock on both sides of her family, and grew up in Ohio on a farm that had been deeded to her paternal great grandfather bearing the signature of President James Madison. By the time Bertha Lamme was born, her family had been farming the same acreage in Ohio for more than half a century.  Hers was the fourth generation of Lammes to call it home.

The Lammes had departed France for Holland because of the terrible persecutions of the Huguenots in the sixteenth century.  Bertha’s ancestors settled in Northern Ireland for a time, and then sought greater freedoms and opportunities in the New World.

When Bertha’s great-great grandfather William Lamme left the North of Ireland and settled in the colony of Virginia in 1730, he brought his faith and determination with him. 

Bertha Lamme’s great grandfather, the son of William and Anna Lamme, was James Lamme.  James Lamme was born in 1745 in Augusta County, Virginia, and he died in 1815 in Clark County, Ohio.  .  He married Elizabeth Givens.  Elizabeth was born in 1755 in Augusta County, Virginia, and died in 1815 in Clark County, Ohio. 

James and Elizabeth settled on a farm in Clark County, Ohio, and they are buried in a graveyard on their farm.  It was on this farm that their great granddaughter Bertha and her siblings would be born and raised—a farm that remains in the family to this day.  At the time the Lammes moved to Ohio it was still considered to be part of the western frontier. 

Not far away, on the banks of the Honey Creek, twelve miles west of Springfield and sixteen miles northeast of Dayton, stands the town of New Carlisle; its origins date to 1810, when it was plated by William Reyburn and called York.  The town’s first location was supplanted in 1812; as the current site was begun, its name was changed to Monroe in honor of the President.  In 1828, the town was renamed for the last time, to New Carlisle.

During Bertha Lamme’s childhood, the population of the town of New Carlisle, excluding the surrounding farms, was about 870.    On the Lamme family’s regular trips to town, they rode over streets that were set on a grid and gravel paved, past sturdy and neatly kept homes.  Familiar landmarks included the town hall, the Odd Fellow’s and Masonic halls and five churches.  The Lamme’s could shop at two dry goods stores, two drug stores, five grocery stores, a hardware store, a tailor’s shop, two milliners, a shoe store, a bakery and confectionary, two harness shops, two tin and stove stores, two furniture and cabinet stores.  The town featured a notions store, two meat markets and two nurseries.  New Carlisle also boasted a carriage factory, a wagon shop, two livery and feed stores, five blacksmith shops, a cooper, two shoe manufactures and two hotels. Neat, compact and inviting, New Carlisle was a prosperous and pleasant place.

The Lamme farm was part of the rich and productive grain district surrounding New Carlisle that produced a vast amount of wheat, corn, rye, barley, flax-seed, potatoes, hay and grass seeds, as well as supplying beef, pork and sheep, all on land to be found within a four-mile radius of the village.

Bertha’s older brother, Benjamin Garver Lamme (1864-1924), born on that same farm near Springfield and educated at The Ohio State University, was a celebrated electrical engineer and inventor of wide reputation with 162 electrical patents. As Chief Engineer of the Westinghouse Electric Company, he was responsible for many significant improvements in electrical machinery.

BG had led the way.  Their father had hoped BG would attend a church-related college, insisting that the Ohio State University, without any religious affiliation, was anathema.  BG retorted, “I want to be an engineer, not an infidel.”  The Ohio State University to which first BG and later Bertha made their way was one of the land grant colleges established as a direct result of the Morrill Land Grand Act of 1862 and the Cannon Act of 1870.

It was her brother BG’s influence that prompted Bertha to take the course in electrical engineering,-a field until then foreign to women, and technically speaking, still in its infancy.

There had been so few other women graduates in the field of engineering before Bertha Lamme, that we can briefly note their remarkable achievements here.  In 1884, Kate Gleason had enrolled at Cornell University as a special student, and she may be the first woman in the United States to study mechanical engineering.  Her studies were conducted also at Sibley College of Engineering and Mechanics Institute (later Rochester Institute of Technology) and she is credited with both industrial design and administrative leadership at the Gleason Works, a family business manufacturing machining equipment.  (Gleason is credited with having co-designed Gleason Works machinery with her father).

Earlier, in 1876, Elizabeth Bragg had graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in civil engineering—a field then closely aligned to architectural studies.  It was not until 1894 that a second woman would graduate from Berkeley with an engineering degree—namely, Julia Morgan, who studied at the College of Mechanics and soon became William Randolph Hearst’s favorite residential architect, helping to create his eccentric retreats at San Simeon and Wintoon.  (In the forty years 1900-1940, only two more women would attain engineering degrees at Berkeley).  This dearth of women in the engineering field was an international phenomenon. 

Bertha was the first woman to concentrate her studies on electrical engineering—which at that time was arguably the most technologically challenging of all the engineering disciplines.  As her brother BG notes in his autobiography, many of the questions that he and the other remarkable graduates of the electrical programs at OSU were asking could not at that time be answered, since the knowledge was not yet there.  Bertha, BG and fellow OSU graduate Russell S. Feicht would be among the pioneering electrical engineers to find the answers and lead the electrical industry for a half-century to come.

In the Ohio State University newsletter about the 1893 graduation, we learn that there must have been about 12 graduates in engineering. The article reports that when Bertha Lamme’s name was read and as she crossed the stage to receive her diploma, there was applause and cheering.  Even then, they knew something special was happening.

When Bertha was studying engineering, and BG was getting his start in the profession, he told her that they would go into designing mechanical toys together.  He described it as a ‘big field’, but by the time she joined him at Westinghouse, he was doing bigger things.

 A graduate of Ohio State University, Bertha came to Westinghouse in 1898 and remained there until 1905.  During her career in electrical engineering, Bertha earned a reputation as an expert mathematician.  Her work in designing motors and generators and calculating horsepower and her mastery over the slide rule made her famous.

In the years that Bertha Lamme worked for Westinghouse, the company had grown in size and scope. The sophistication of their products had increased exponentially.  The superiority of alternating current had not only been proven to the satisfaction of the world, but also had become the world standard for electrification.  The American landscape had undergone changes that would not end with this era. Changes that included The 1893 World's Colombian Exposition in Chicago, which had been a “Great White City” not only in terms of the color of its Beaux Arts inspired architecture, but also because all through the night, it offered fair-goers from across the nation the world’s greatest display of incandescent lighting up until that time.  The intoxicating vision of that fair was etched in countless minds and taken back to every village, town and city, to become part of the City Beautiful movement. To be a modern city was to be an electrically-lighted city.  

The first major alternating-current Westinghouse power plant at Niagara Falls clearly demonstrated the practical advantages of Westinghouse’s system.  The 1896 trolley system created to be run by alternating current in Buffalo, New York, hinted at the possibilities of electrical rapid transit.  In 1900 Westinghouse built the first steam turbine-generator for a U.S. electric utility (Hartford Electric Light Company), revolutionizing generation of electricity from coal.  In 1905 came the first demonstration of main-line locomotive powered by single-phase alternating current, as well as the first electric motor drive for main rolls in steel mill.  Bertha had a hand in all of them.  Shy, quiet and brilliant, Bertha Lamme had helped change the entire nature of American life. 

As remarkable as these achievements were, and as stimulating as Bertha found the work to be, she was about to enter a new phase of her life, one which would take her from the center of the rapidly expanding electrical industry to an era of personal fulfillment of an altogether different kind.

Unfortunately, there are no family papers to document the first meeting of Bertha A. Lamme and Russell S. Feicht.  Oral tradition maintains that they met as fellow students at Ohio State.  The tantalizing possibility is that they had already become fond of one another at college, before both of them went to work at Westinghouse. As likely as it may be, it remains conjecture.  Perhaps in some forgotten letter or diary of a classmate from that time there exists an account of their first meeting and their growing friendship. However, there is nothing in writing to verify or disprove this theory. Obviously, they knew one another from the years when they both had been students at the same time at the fledgling Ohio State University.  They were among a few handfuls of students who were studying the same disciplines.  And since Feicht and Bertha’s brother BG had been friends at college, it is virtually assured that Russell and Bertha were aware of each other from that time onward.

Bertha Avanella Lamme and Russell Stimson Feicht were married at her mother and brother and sisters' home in the East End, which was on the corner of Friendship and Stratford Avenues. (230 Stratford Avenue, a big late Victorian house).

Bertha was slender; she had a 19-inch waist when she was married.  Her granddaughter Dorothy Lamme Boyer has Bertha's wedding dress, which was altered (at the waist, not in length) for Bertha's  daughter Florence Feicht Boyer for her wedding to Robert Boyer.  Bertha stood at about 5' 5" or 5' 6" tall, the same height as her daughter and granddaughter.  On the bridal gown, Bertha wore a gold and diamond pin, a wedding gift from the groom. 

It is fair to say that the Lamme and Feicht families, while welcome in occasional social gatherings that included Pittsburgh’s elite, were contented to find themselves among the quiet, unassuming and comfortable upper middle class, in which life revolved around family and hearth. They were not listed Pittsburgh’s “Blue Books” in the Pittsburgh social register, although they arguably could have been—many of their East End neighbors who accomplished less were. The Lamme and Feicht social circles included some long-time colleagues from Westinghouse, a group of friends from the Higland Presbyterian Church, a few like-minded neighbors, but consisted chiefly of members of their own family circle.

Bertha Lamme Feicht lived at 1115 Portland Street after her marriage to Russell Feicht.  Their daughter Florence Lamme Feicht Boyer was born there on April 19, 1910, and lived there until she moved to the Fox Chapel suburb in 1954. (She died on January 8, 1997).

Family holidays were always spent at “The Aunties”, that is, the house on Stratford Avenue.  This closeness of family which brought each of the generations strength and joy was of a more mingled for Florence.  On Christmas, for instance, soon after her gifts were open, the family would take themselves the several blocks to The Aunties’ where they would spend the remainder of Christmas day.  While there were presents from the aunties, the centerpiece of the family celebration was a formal Christmas dinner, in the big dining room, where a small child was expected to be on her best behavior through what seemed to her to be interminable courses and the often boring adult conversation.  Without her newly opened presents, and surrounded by adults (albeit doting upon her) Florence longed for home.  So much so that when she had children of her own, she decreed that to fully enjoy the day, she would not cook—and so each year the family enjoyed a Christmas dinner of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Bertha Lamme Feicht died late Friday, November 20, 1943.  Funeral services were conducted at the H. Samson Funeral Home, 537 Neville Street, with burial in Homewood Cemetery.  Bertha’s legacy is remembered not only by her grandchildren John and Dorothy Boyer, but by all who have a keen interest in the role of women in the field of electrical engineering.

Copyright © 2019, John A. Dalles



Thursday, May 30, 2019

How to find Home


Remember the prodigal.  He knew where to find love and hope and home.

In his father’s embrace.  In his father’s home.
Trust that God is extending his love, is reaching out.  It welcoming you.
Let God’s love for you be your central reality.
And then do one thing more.
Share it with others.

You will be glad you did.

Centering our lives on Christ


 Christ did not say "I will show you the way," 
Christ says; "I am the way."
 Christ did not say, "I have the truth," 
Christ says: "I am the truth."
 Christ did not say, "I lead unto life," 
Christ says: "I am life…
No wonder we are
centering our lives on Christ.


Christ is Safety


Christ is safety.  How will you offer Christ’s safety to those around you?  Will you tell them?  Show them?  Take them by the hand and lead them?

Speaking with him daily, even when we come as we are, faltering steps, with perplexities, with the bumps and bruises of life.  We still trust his word:

“I will never leave you, nor forsake you." Will you help others through their trials of life with the assurance: "We are more than conquerors through him that loved us."

Climb the Mountain


Christ brought Peter, James, and John up the mountain, as a new beginning.  To point them in the direction of their heroic responsibilities.  To spread the news.  They were the people who would turn the world upside down.

That was their present moment.

I firmly believe that you are called for this moment.  That you have been set apart for service.  That you understand, from some moment of transfiguration of your own, that everything you do is surrounded and guided by the wonders of Christian living.

And I also firmly believe that it is not a simple task.  That your reality has as many mountains to climb as Moses and Elijah, and Peter, James and John. 

One of the great things about your mountains, is that you accept the challenge.  You climb eagerly.  And willingly. 

The Greatest Good


You have probably enjoyed, as I have, the documentary “Won’t you be my Neighbor” about everyone’s favorite Pittsburgh Presbyterian Pastor, Fred Rogers.  I had a chance to see it again, recently.  Each time I see it, I cherish certain moments, and I discover new ones.

One discover, this most recent time, was Fred saying this:

I think that those who would try to make you feel less than you are, that’s the greatest evil.

          We understand.  And we know that turning his words to the positive side – is in keeping with what Jesus says to us this day:

          I think that those who would try to make you feel greater than you are, that is the greatest good.

          I know that you are going out into a big and sometimes cold world, today.  And this week.  And parts of the world are not very welcoming or safe.  I also know that you are making that world less grim.  More caring.  More loving. I know that your goal is to love those who at first seem unlovable.  And I know that you will reach that goal.

Worship With Us on Sunday Mornings at 11 a.m.

Worship With Us on Sunday Mornings at 11 a.m.

You will enjoy being part of the warm and welcoming congregation here at Shadyside Presbyterian Church.  Here you will find wonderful people who join together to worship, know, and serve our Living Lord Jesus Christ.  After worship, enjoy fellowship and a chance to meet and visit with one another.  We look forward to greeting you here.

Listen to our live webcast, if you cannot be with us in person:






Friday, May 3, 2019

As Your Dear Friend Once Welcomed You - A New Hymn




As Shadyside Presbyterian Church's Director of Music Ministry, Mark A. Anderson, and I were planning worship during this Lenten Season, back on February 21, we were not finding a hymn that we were happy with, to conclude worship on Sunday April 7.  The Gospel lectionary reading for that morning was John 12:1-8, when Jesus shared a meal at Bethany with his treasured friends Martha, Lazarus, and Mary.  

I said to Mark, "Why don't we sing a hymn that you have written?"  His reply, "John, the other option for the first Sunday in April for a closing hymn would be for you to write a text and for me to write the tune. That might be too much, with everything else on your plate, but keep it in mind for future Sundays. It would be great fun to see what we could do."  

What a gracious and great idea!  

So, that is what we did.  I wrote the words; Mark wrote the music.  And the congregation sang our brand new hymn on Sunday, April 7th.  It was a joy to work on the hymn with Mark, and a joy to hear the congregation sing it.  Here's to more collaborations!

Go to this link to the Shadyside Presbyterian Church blog to read more and to listen to the hymn:

New Hymn

Please contact me regarding use in worship.

Do Dogs Go To Heaven?




Do Dogs Go to Heaven?

Recently Pope Francis told a young boy whose dog has died that paradise is open to all of God's creatures.

This is a compassionate response to that boy.  It is also a word of assurance to anyone who has had a pet – particularly a dog – who wonders what happens when that pet dies.
Our dog, Brantley, died this past month, at age 11 ½ and left a big empty hole in our hearts.  We have been grieving for him the way we would grieve for a dear friend and family member.  Anyone who has had a companionable dog who has died, knows exactly how that feels. 

Brantley picked us out, not the other way around.

We had lost our beloved Yorkie, Tuppence, after 17 ½ years.  As she grew into old age, we had agreed together that when the time came, and she died, we would not get another dog.  The reasons were very practical. We both worked, she spent a fair amount of time at home alone.  We liked to travel.  She didn’t travel with us which meant kennels and boarding and the costs that went with it.  Life would be simpler without another dog – when the time came.

And then, sweet Tuppence died.  We reminded ourselves of what we had agreed.  But the house seemed very empty indeed.  We missed that smiling little presence.
I was the weak link.  I lasted a week. And then insisted that we get another dog.  We agreed that it would be either another Yorkie or a Miniature Schnauzer - since both do not shed. We looked at several pet stores and shelters.  We ended up at one particular pet store with lots of puppies, and at least 6 Yorkie puppies.  They were in kennel cages along a long wall, with some at the right end and some at the left end. Lots of other dogs in the cages in-between.

As I walked from one end of the pet shop to the other, a small face with bright eyes and a sweet smile watched me walk by and walk back.  His gaze was locked on my face.  I asked one of the attendants in the shop what kind of a dog it was.  “A Yochon,” was the reply.  Half Yorkshire Terrier and half Bichon Frise.  “We need to see that dog.” Indeed we did.  

The attendant brought him to the get-to-know-you enclosure, he nuzzled his head under Judy’s chin, and that was all it took.  She looked at me and said, “Do they have two of them?”

Our dog Brantley received love and care, affection and attention, treats and trips, from us.  And yet: If we were to try to balance that with what he gave, the scales would tip heavily in his direction.  Because in addition to the love and care and affection and attention he gave us, he served as an example of unconditional love and pure empathy.  I often referred to him as love bundled up in fur.

The Bible is not encouraging when you look in a concordance and are asking what it says about dogs.  It seems the Biblical writers did not have a fondness for them, and even Jesus speaks disparagingly of dogs.  When dog lovers who are also faithful Christians read these passages, they tend to wince.  Maybe there were more stray, rabid, and dangerous dogs in Bible times?  Maybe people then were adverse to dogs, in the same way that they were averse to recreational swimming?  No matter. 

God watches over all of God’s creation.  They experience. They suffer. They grieve. They love.
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The lord god made them all.

God took such infinite pains to make them, one must feel certain that they will somehow inhabit God’s eternal kingdom.  Even as the animals were drawn to St Francis, so too, we will be surrounded by these good and gentle creatures.  

Edward Hicks’ many paintings of The Peaceable Kingdom – an eschatological state inferred from texts such as the Book of Isaiah, the Book of Hosea, and the Sermon on the Mount – will one day become the everlasting reality.  Dogs will be in heaven.  It warms my heart to trust it to be true. 

"The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."

Morning at the Phipps


Monday we spent the morning at Phipps Conservatory, one of the loveliest places to visit if you love gorgeous gardens.  Here is a small sampling of what we saw when we were there.













Pittsburgh at Dusk


Here is another look at Downtown Pittsburgh from Mt. Washington, taken from roughly the same spot as the previous post.  In this photo, the sun has gone down, and the city is starting to light up the night. 

Mt. Washington has long been a magnet for those who want a great view of the city.  Perhaps the second best view - the best being when the whole Downtown bursts into sight as you emerge from the Ft. Pitt Tunnel.

Do people who get to have this view every day ever get tired of it?  I doubt it.  I certainly don't. 

Pittsburgh Afternoon


One of the joys of being back in my hometown is seeing it in all of its glory, which we had a chance to do this past weekend.  

From high atop Mt. Washington, you get a good look at the city, and can talk about everything from its early origins at the Point, with the footprint of Fort Duquesne and Fort Pitt, to the modern landmarks such as PNC Park and Heinz Field.  All of them, spread out before you like the very best train layout ever.  

I was glad to be able to catch the city on a blue sky afternoon, with sunshine and clouds behaving very well indeed.  If you love this city as I do, you will want to zoom the photo and look at some of the details.  

If you are a friend and follower who is not familiar with Pittsburgh, suffice to say that if you follow the Allegheny River (the river to the left of the photo) as it recedes into the background, we are living "upriver" and to the left, in Indiana Township.  And Shadyside Presbyterian Church is also upriver but to the right - slightly - of the water tower you see on the tallest nearby hillside (the water tower is in the the Garfield neighborhood).


Friday, April 12, 2019

At Shadyside Presbyterian Church


This is my first post while serving Shadyside Presbyterian Church.

Today marks my 8 week anniversary as the Interim Senior Pastor and Head of Staff of Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

This has been a wonderful season of new beginnings.  Indeed, within my first week here, I experienced my first Session meeting, first worship service, and first meeting of Pittsburgh Presbytery.  I also discovered what a warm and welcoming congregation this is, and what wonderful church staff members are here.

Shadyside Presbyterian Church dates back to its founding in the mid 1860's, and has an illustrious history of innovation and excellence in ministry.

As time progresses, I will be saying more.  But for now, I will say that I am delighted to be serving here, and have felt God's guiding hand each step of the way.