"[2] After graduating from Cornell University in 1969 with a BA in literature, Cornish moved to the Puget Sound region and worked at The Shelter Half, a GI coffeehouse, as part of the anti-war movement in Tacoma, Washington.

In 1974, Cornish, along with other members of the FSP and Radical Women, picketed in a strike of clerical and maintenance workers at the University of Washington, which she later described as an early expression of comparable worth.

[5] Gordon Vickery, the former fire chief and superintendent of City Light, was exploring the possibility of running for mayor and hoped to cite the successful completion of a female ETT program as a cornerstone of his experience in future elections.

Unlike in the previous programs, the female ETT members were given extra training and allowed to join the IBEW Local 77 with their own bargaining unit within the union.

[6] Shortly before her training began, an eleven-day employee walkout in response to a new disciplinary code proposed by Vickery shut down City Light.

[10] In response, the ETTs filed a complaint with the City of Seattle Office of Women's Rights (OWR), stating that they were being denied the typical amount of training and pay reserved for male employees.

Following an organizing meeting led by the walkout leaders that many of the trainees attended, Vickery called the women into his office and forced them to sign a loyalty oath pledging to fulfill their employment obligations without complaint.

[12] After the July 1976 victory in court, Cornish applied for a City Light apprenticeship as a lineworker alongside two other Radical Women members named Teri Bach and Heidi Durham.

[8] Cornish described the period during which she and the other female trainees returned to work after winning their court case as the "roughest" time during her career at City Light.

[14] Many male electricians, frustrated and demoralized by their strike's defeat, held resentment towards the former ETTs for winning their discrimination case, and these feelings were exploited by management to increase the sexist hostility of the work environments.

[15] Despite having an affirmative action plan in place to diversify its workforce, Cornish, Bach, and Durham remained some of the only female electrical workers at City Light for nearly ten years.