Enedina Alves Marques' 110th Birthday

Today’s Doodle celebrates the 110th birthday of Brazilian engineer Enedina Alves Marques, the first Black woman in Brazil to receive an engineering degree and the first woman in the state of Paraná to become an engineer.

On this day in 1913, Marques was born in Curitiba, Brazil. She worked as a domestic laborer and nanny to put herself through secondary school and became a teacher after graduating. But she had her sights set higher on attending University. She took the qualification exams and enrolled in civil engineering classes at the Federal University of Paraná in 1940. As this was only fifty years after abolishing slavery and nine years since women gained the right to vote, Marquez was antagonized and ignored by some of her teachers and peers. Despite facing discrimination while getting a degree in a White, male-dominated field, Marques persisted and was the only woman alongside 32 male students to graduate in 1945. 

She began her career at the State Department of Transportation and Public Works as an engineering assistant and transferred to the State Department of Water and Electric Energy in Paraná. Here, she contributed to sizable projects, like the development of the Paraná Hydroelectric Plan for several rivers in the area, and the topographical survey and construction of the biggest underground hydroelectric plant, the Capivari-Cachoeira Plant. 

In recognition of her contributions to Paraná and the engineering field, her name was inscribed on the Memorial à Mulher (Memorial to the Woman) along with 53 other pioneering Brazilian women. A street in a neighborhood of Curitiba was named Rua Engenheira Enedina Alves Marques after her. And in 2006, the Instituto de Mulheres Negras Enedina Alves Marques (Enedina Alves Marques Institute of Black Women) was founded in Maringá, Paraná.

Happy birthday, Enedina Alves Marques!