Elsie MacGill achieved many firsts in science and engineering at a time when women were considered to be inferior in the sciences. In 1923, at the age of nineteen, she became the first woman to attend engineering classes at the University of Toronto. She was the first woman in North America to hold a degree in aeronautical engineering and the first woman aircraft designer in the world. As chief engineer for the Canadian Car and Foundry Company she oversaw the production of the Hawker Hurricane, and designed a series of modifications to equip the plain for cold weather flying. Her Maple Leaf trainer may still be the only plane ever to be completely designed by a woman. And she did all this while suffering from polio. In this biography we learn that she supervised 4500 workers and produced about 1450 Hawker Hurricanes by the end of WWII. Elsie was a popular heroine of her time, inspiring the comic book "Queen of the Hurricanes" in the 1940s. In later life she became a powerful feminist activist, advocating for the rights of women and children.

Crystal Sissons is an independent historian and works at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada in Ottawa. She completed her Master’s and Ph.D. in history at the University of Ottawa, after finishing undergraduate degrees in history and education at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Crystal is also active in a number of organizations, including the Business and Professional Women’s Club of Ottawa within BPW Canada.

Crystal Sissons' profile page

As if often the way with extraordinary people, Elsie MacGill did not believe that she was exceptional; she was just an engineer who also happened to be female. But exceptional she was... Sissons deftly covers MacGill’s struggles to prevail over the lasting effects of polio, her education, her early career, and her quick rise through the ranks as a result of the Second World War.

Canada's History Magazine

"[Crystal Sissons] balances being factual with being interesting, and clearly has a great amount of respect for her subject.... Queen of the Hurricanes is well-written, compelling, and digestible without being simple."

Paper Droids

The book not only provides the most comprehensive chronicling of her accomplishments to date, but also allows Elsie to speak for herself and to tell her own story more than in any other account of her life.

Canadian Science Publishing