Edna Owen

[1] She was the director of the wireless training course run by the National League for Women's Service at Hunter College, New York; trained female wireless operators at the YWCA in New York City; and was a founder and chairman of the Women's Radio Corps.

[2] While in Utah, Owen campaigned against polygamy before they moved east to New York and, more generally, was an ardent suffragette.

[3] Throughout the war, Owen also ran a radio training class at the YWCA in New York where alumni included Belle Baruch.

[4] A mere six days after the US entered the war in April 1917, Owen offered to provide 500 licensed female wireless operators in six months.

In order to achieve this highly ambitious goal, Owen campaigned tirelessly to add recruits, lecturing up to 200 young women at once in lectures in New York and Washington, D.C., on the "many wonderful opportunities" brought by the occasion of the "great world war.

B&W image of Guglielmo Marconi and Edna Owen standing with Hunter college wireless students. Marconi is standing at attention and wearing a white uniform (shoes to cap). Owen dressed in a full-length dress with hat. Her hands are clasped in front of her holding a handbag.
Guglielmo Marconi and Edna Owen in 1917 with Hunter College students enrolled in a radio class for women wireless telegraphers.