EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a weekly series on our region’s history coordinated by the Trumbull County Historical Society.

We’re kicking off Women’s History Month highlighting a truly extraordinary Warren woman: Zella McBerty.

In an era when women were expected to remain far from factory floors and engineering offices, Zella McBerty quietly, and confidently, rewrote the rules.

Born in 1879 in Mineral Ridge, Zella was orphaned at a young age. Few records survive about her early life, and we do not know how she first entered the world of electrical engineering. What we do know is remarkable. At just 16 years old, she began working at the Packard Lamp Factory, stepping into industrial work at a time when such spaces were overwhelmingly male.

By 1909, she married Fred McBerty and the couple moved into a home on Washington Street NW in Warren that still stands today. Her husband built his career in the rapidly growing electrical manufacturing field, working for several electric welder companies before becoming manager of the Federal Machine and Welder Company in 1917, after a corporate merger. At that time, the firm was the largest electric welder company in the world.

Zella was integral to the enterprise. Serving as secretary and treasurer, she helped guide the company’s financial and administrative operations during a period of rapid industrial expansion. A 1923 newspaper article noted that she had started in business at age 16 and “could manage a lathe, scraper, or any machine as well as her workmen.”

Another article from the New Castle Herald marveled, “Manufacturing and selling electric welding machines seems rather out of women’s province, but when you hear Mrs. McBerty talk ohms and amperes as well as any electrical engineer, you realize there is hardly a business realm that a capable woman can not invade.”

Zella McBerty is considered one of the first female electrical engineers in the United States. In 1924, she was the only woman to attend the International Convention of Electrical Engineers.

She was active in professional circles, serving with the Association of Cleveland Electrical Engineers and participating in the London Association of Electric Engineers — an extraordinary accomplishment for any professional, let alone a woman of her time.

Zella understood the broader significance of her work. She was active in the Warren Professional and Business Women’s Association and in women’s clubs locally, including Zonta International, the international organization dedicated to advancing women in professional life.

Through speeches and conference appearances — covered in newspapers from Detroit to Ithaca, New York — she inspired other women to pursue careers beyond traditional expectations.

Later in life, she reflected on her success with characteristic confidence. She credited her instincts, particularly her ability to judge whether a prospective buyer would pay their bills. If her first impression suggested otherwise, she refused the sale.

At a time when few women were welcomed into engineering, Zella McBerty created a path for them to do so. She left Warren with a legacy of intelligence, courage and professional excellence that still resonates in the women’s clubs that exist today.