Isobel St. Clair Loutit (July 18, 1909 – April 19, 2009) was a Canadian mathematician, educator, inventor, and statistician. She was "one of the first women, if not the first, to work professionally as a statistician in Canada", and she was recognized as an honorary member of the

Statistical Society of Canada The Statistical Society of Canada (SSC) (french: Société statistique du Canada) is a professional organization whose mission is to promote the use and development of statistics and probability. Its objectives are * to make the general public a ...

Early life and education

Loutit was born in

Selkirk, Manitoba Selkirk is a city in the western Canadian province of Manitoba, located on the Red River about northeast of the provincial capital Winnipeg. It has a population of 10,504 as of the 2021 census. The mainstays of the local economy are tourism, ...

, one of seven children. Her father, Peter Robert Loutit (1878–1961), was a school teacher and principal, of Scottish descent. She earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1929 from the

University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba.French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with France ...

, one of four women to earn a mathematics degree that year. One of her professors there, Lloyd A. H. Warren, taught her statistics. She also studied probability, numerical analysis, least squares, and actuarial science.

Career

Faced with a choice between becoming a teacher, nurse, or secretary, the only career alternatives available at that time to women, Loutit chose to be a teacher. The male teachers at the schools she taught at were given priority for the mathematics classes, so she ended up teaching French, with occasional roles as a substitute mathematics teacher. She remained a school teacher from 1929 to 1942. After learning of the deaths of several of her former students in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Loutit signed up for an engineering job advertised to women with technical degrees, to replace the men who had gone abroad as soldiers. Although officially employed by the government, she began working with

Vernon Oswald Marquez Vernon Oswald Marquez or V. O. Marquez (born in Trinidad) was president of the Northern Electric Company Nortel Networks Corporation (Nortel), formerly Northern Telecom Limited, was a Canadian multinational telecommunications and data networki ...

Northern Electric Northern Electric was an electricity supply and distribution company serving north east England. History It had its origins as the North Eastern Electricity Board, formed as part of the nationalisation of the electricity industry by the Elec ...

, to help develop an

anti-aircraft Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, ...

targeting device. Marquez requested that she be transferred to Northern Electric more permanently, and she became an employee in 1943, appointed as an engineer despite her lack of engineering training in order to allow her to be paid beyond the women's salary scale. After the war, Loutit worked as a statistician for Northern Electric, at first in the telephone division and later in the wire and cable division, specializing in data analysis and quality control. She was promoted to Department Chief in 1966, becoming the first woman to take a management position in the company.

Other activities

While working at Northern Electric, Loutit became involved in the Montréal Section of the

American Society for Quality Control The American Society for Quality (ASQ), formerly the American Society for Quality Control (ASQC), is a society of quality professionals, with nearly 80,000 members. History ASQC was established on 16 February 1946 by 253 members in Milwaukee, ...

, including chairing a one-day meeting on quality control in 1961 and the first Canadian Regional Conference of the society in 1966. At the 1961 meeting, she gave a lunchtime speech in French, "the first official use of French by this professional society". She was elected chair of the section in 1969. In her retirement, Loutit wrote several pieces on the local history of

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

and

Compton County, Quebec Compton County is an historical county in southeastern Quebec, Canada on the western flanks of the Appalachian Mountains on the Canada–United States border. It is in the Estrie (Eastern Townships) region of the province and was named in 1793 aft ...

before returning to Winnipeg in 1989.

Recognition

Loutit became an honorary member of the

in 2009. The Business and Industrial Statistics Section of the Society also offers an annual lecture, the Isobel Loutit Invited Address, in her memory.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Loutit, Isobel Canadian statisticians Women statisticians University of Manitoba alumni 1909 births 2009 deaths