When computers were women

Technology and Culture

Volumn 40, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 455-483

  Light, Jennifer S ^a   Buck, Peter ^a   Goldstine, Herman ^a   Prentice, Rachel ^a   Turkle, Sherry ^a   Staudenmaier, John ^a  

^a QUEEN S UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

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EID: 0033409537     PISSN: 0040165X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
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References (114)

1. History has valued hardware over programming to such an extent that even the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing issue devoted to ENIAC's fiftieth anniversary barely mentioned these women's roles. See IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 18, no. 1 (1996). Instead, they were featured two issues later in a special issue on women in computing.
2. Ruth Milkman, Gender at Work: The Dynamics of Job Segregation by Sex During World War II (Chicago, 1987).
3. Two books currently offer some information on the participation of women in computer history: see Autumn Stanley, Mothers and Daughters of Invention: Notes for a Revised History of Technology (Metuchen, N.J., 1993), and Herman Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to Von Neumann (Princeton, 1972). For recollections from women who worked on the ENIAC, see W. Barkley Fritz, "The Women of ENIAC," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 18, no. 3 (1996): 13-28. Other histories tend to make passing references to the women and to show photographs of them without identifying them by name.
4. Two books currently offer some information on the participation of women in computer history: see Autumn Stanley, Mothers and Daughters of Invention: Notes for a Revised History of Technology (Metuchen, N.J., 1993), and Herman Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to Von Neumann (Princeton, 1972). For recollections from women who worked on the ENIAC, see W. Barkley Fritz, "The Women of ENIAC," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 18, no. 3 (1996): 13-28. Other histories tend to make passing references to the women and to show photographs of them without identifying them by name.
5. Two books currently offer some information on the participation of women in computer history: see Autumn Stanley, Mothers and Daughters of Invention: Notes for a Revised History of Technology (Metuchen, N.J., 1993), and Herman Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to Von Neumann (Princeton, 1972). For recollections from women who worked on the ENIAC, see W. Barkley Fritz, "The Women of ENIAC," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 18, no. 3 (1996): 13-28. Other histories tend to make passing references to the women and to show photographs of them without identifying them by name.
6. Evelyn Steele, Wartime Opportunities for Women (New York, 1943), preface. For an analysis of American mobilization propaganda directed at women, see Leila Rupp, Mobilizing Women for War: German and American Propaganda, 1939-1945 (Princeton, 1978).
7. Evelyn Steele, Wartime Opportunities for Women (New York, 1943), preface. For an analysis of American mobilization propaganda directed at women, see Leila Rupp, Mobilizing Women for War: German and American Propaganda, 1939-1945 (Princeton, 1978).
8. Keith Ayling, Calling All Women (New York, 1942), 129.
9. Steele, 101.
10. Ibid., 99-100.
11. According to a Women's Bureau Bulletin, "A coeducational university, which before the war had few outlets for mathematics majors except in routine calculating jobs, found many attractive jobs available to mathematics majors during the war, mostly in Government-sponsored research. . . . There was a definite shift from the usual type of employment for mathematics majors in teaching and in clerical jobs in business firms to computing work in industry and on Government war projects." See United States Department of Labor, "The Outlook for Women in Mathematics and Statistics," Women's Bureau Bulletin 223-24 (1948): 3. According to this report, women comprised the majority of high-school mathematics teachers.
12. Ibid., 8. Margaret Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940-1972 (Baltimore, 1995), 13, confirms this practice more widely in the sciences. The few women who worked in supervisory roles generally supervised other women, a much less prestigious managerial role than supervising men. However, at the Work Project Administration's Mathematical Tables Project, women supervised male computers. See Denise W. Gürer, "Women's Contributions to Early Computing at the National Bureau of Standards," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 18, no. 3 (1996): 29-35. The War Department in 1942 classified all military occupational specialties as either suitable or unsuitable for women; all jobs involving supervision over men were automatically declared unsuitable. Public Law 110 also made explicit that women could not command men without intervention from the secretary of war; see Bettie Morden, The Women's Army Corps, 1945-1978 (Washington, D.C., 1990), 14.
13. Ibid., 8. Margaret Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940-1972 (Baltimore, 1995), 13, confirms this practice more widely in the sciences. The few women who worked in supervisory roles generally supervised other women, a much less prestigious managerial role than supervising men. However, at the Work Project Administration's Mathematical Tables Project, women supervised male computers. See Denise W. Gürer, "Women's Contributions to Early Computing at the National Bureau of Standards," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 18, no. 3 (1996): 29-35. The War Department in 1942 classified all military occupational specialties as either suitable or unsuitable for women; all jobs involving supervision over men were automatically declared unsuitable. Public Law 110 also made explicit that women could not command men without intervention from the secretary of war; see Bettie Morden, The Women's Army Corps, 1945-1978 (Washington, D.C., 1990), 14.
14. Ibid., 8. Margaret Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940-1972 (Baltimore, 1995), 13, confirms this practice more widely in the sciences. The few women who worked in supervisory roles generally supervised other women, a much less prestigious managerial role than supervising men. However, at the Work Project Administration's Mathematical Tables Project, women supervised male computers. See Denise W. Gürer, "Women's Contributions to Early Computing at the National Bureau of Standards," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 18, no. 3 (1996): 29-35. The War Department in 1942 classified all military occupational specialties as either suitable or unsuitable for women; all jobs involving supervision over men were automatically declared unsuitable. Public Law 110 also made explicit that women could not command men without intervention from the secretary of war; see Bettie Morden, The Women's Army Corps, 1945-1978 (Washington, D.C., 1990), 14.
15. Ibid., 8. Margaret Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940-1972 (Baltimore, 1995), 13, confirms this practice more widely in the sciences. The few women who worked in supervisory roles generally supervised other women, a much less prestigious managerial role than supervising men. However, at the Work Project Administration's Mathematical Tables Project, women supervised male computers. See Denise W. Gürer, "Women's Contributions to Early Computing at the National Bureau of Standards," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 18, no. 3 (1996): 29-35. The War Department in 1942 classified all military occupational specialties as either suitable or unsuitable for women; all jobs involving supervision over men were automatically declared unsuitable. Public Law 110 also made explicit that women could not command men without intervention from the secretary of war; see Bettie Morden, The Women's Army Corps, 1945-1978 (Washington, D.C., 1990), 14.
16. See Margaret Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940 (Baltimore, 1982), also Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940-1972. In the 1982 volume, p. 55, Rossiter describes the late-nineteenth-century star counters in astronomical laboratories who performed computer work for male astronomers. The famed astronomer Maria Mitchell was employed as a computer for the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in the late 1860s. The term computer, meaning "one who computes," originally referred to the human who was assigned various mathematical calculations. Ute Huffman dates the use of computer to the seventeenth century, when it was used in reference to men who tracked the course of time in their calendars. For decades the terms computer and calculator were interchangeable. In fact, early computers such as the ENIAC and Mark I were called electronic calculators. See Ute Hoffmann, "Opfer und Täterinnen: Frauen in der Computergeschichte," in Micro Sisters: Digitalisierung des Alltags, Frauen und Computer, ed. Ingrid Schöll and Ina Küller (Berlin, 1988). A number of other historians have documented women's work in other sciences. For example, Peter Galison, Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (Chicago, 1997), discusses the work of women in high-energy physics laboratories, both those who counted flashes on the scintillator in Rutherford's laboratory and those who scanned the photographs from bubble-chamber experiments. Caroline Herzenberg and Ruth Howes, "Women of the Manhattan Project," Technology Review 8 (1993): 37, describe the work of women at Los Alamos, "some with degrees in mathematics and others with little technical background," who performed mathematical calculations for the design of the bomb. Amy Sue Bix, "Experiences and Voices of Eugenics Field-Workers: 'Women's Work' in Biology," Social Studies of Science 27 (1997): 625-68, reports the work of female field-workers at the Eugenics Record Office, who gathered data on individuals and families. In every case the work was subordinate to men's. See also Jane S. Wilson and Charlotte Serber, eds., Standing By and Making Do: Women of Wartime Los Alamos (Los Alamos, N.M., 1988).
17. See Margaret Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940 (Baltimore, 1982), also Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940-1972. In the 1982 volume, p. 55, Rossiter describes the late-nineteenth-century star counters in astronomical laboratories who performed computer work for male astronomers. The famed astronomer Maria Mitchell was employed as a computer for the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in the late 1860s. The term computer, meaning "one who computes," originally referred to the human who was assigned various mathematical calculations. Ute Huffman dates the use of computer to the seventeenth century, when it was used in reference to men who tracked the course of time in their calendars. For decades the terms computer and calculator were interchangeable. In fact, early computers such as the ENIAC and Mark I were called electronic calculators. See Ute Hoffmann, "Opfer und Täterinnen: Frauen in der Computergeschichte," in Micro Sisters: Digitalisierung des Alltags, Frauen und Computer, ed. Ingrid Schöll and Ina Küller (Berlin, 1988). A number of other historians have documented women's work in other sciences. For example, Peter Galison, Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (Chicago, 1997), discusses the work of women in high-energy physics laboratories, both those who counted flashes on the scintillator in Rutherford's laboratory and those who scanned the photographs from bubble-chamber experiments. Caroline Herzenberg and Ruth Howes, "Women of the Manhattan Project," Technology Review 8 (1993): 37, describe the work of women at Los Alamos, "some with degrees in mathematics and others with little technical background," who performed mathematical calculations for the design of the bomb. Amy Sue Bix, "Experiences and Voices of Eugenics Field-Workers: 'Women's Work' in Biology," Social Studies of Science 27 (1997): 625-68, reports the work of female field-workers at the Eugenics Record Office, who gathered data on individuals and families. In every case the work was subordinate to men's. See also Jane S. Wilson and Charlotte Serber, eds., Standing By and Making Do: Women of Wartime Los Alamos (Los Alamos, N.M., 1988).
18. See Margaret Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940 (Baltimore, 1982), also Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940-1972. In the 1982 volume, p. 55, Rossiter describes the late-nineteenth-century star counters in astronomical laboratories who performed computer work for male astronomers. The famed astronomer Maria Mitchell was employed as a computer for the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in the late 1860s. The term computer, meaning "one who computes," originally referred to the human who was assigned various mathematical calculations. Ute Huffman dates the use of computer to the seventeenth century, when it was used in reference to men who tracked the course of time in their calendars. For decades the terms computer and calculator were interchangeable. In fact, early computers such as the ENIAC and Mark I were called electronic calculators. See Ute Hoffmann, "Opfer und Täterinnen: Frauen in der Computergeschichte," in Micro Sisters: Digitalisierung des Alltags, Frauen und Computer, ed. Ingrid Schöll and Ina Küller (Berlin, 1988). A number of other historians have documented women's work in other sciences. For example, Peter Galison, Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (Chicago, 1997), discusses the work of women in high-energy physics laboratories, both those who counted flashes on the scintillator in Rutherford's laboratory and those who scanned the photographs from bubble-chamber experiments. Caroline Herzenberg and Ruth Howes, "Women of the Manhattan Project," Technology Review 8 (1993): 37, describe the work of women at Los Alamos, "some with degrees in mathematics and others with little technical background," who performed mathematical calculations for the design of the bomb. Amy Sue Bix, "Experiences and Voices of Eugenics Field-Workers: 'Women's Work' in Biology," Social Studies of Science 27 (1997): 625-68, reports the work of female field-workers at the Eugenics Record Office, who gathered data on individuals and families. In every case the work was subordinate to men's. See also Jane S. Wilson and Charlotte Serber, eds., Standing By and Making Do: Women of Wartime Los Alamos (Los Alamos, N.M., 1988).
19. See Margaret Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940 (Baltimore, 1982), also Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940-1972. In the 1982 volume, p. 55, Rossiter describes the late-nineteenth-century star counters in astronomical laboratories who performed computer work for male astronomers. The famed astronomer Maria Mitchell was employed as a computer for the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in the late 1860s. The term computer, meaning "one who computes," originally referred to the human who was assigned various mathematical calculations. Ute Huffman dates the use of computer to the seventeenth century, when it was used in reference to men who tracked the course of time in their calendars. For decades the terms computer and calculator were interchangeable. In fact, early computers such as the ENIAC and Mark I were called electronic calculators. See Ute Hoffmann, "Opfer und Täterinnen: Frauen in der Computergeschichte," in Micro Sisters: Digitalisierung des Alltags, Frauen und Computer, ed. Ingrid Schöll and Ina Küller (Berlin, 1988). A number of other historians have documented women's work in other sciences. For example, Peter Galison, Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (Chicago, 1997), discusses the work of women in high-energy physics laboratories, both those who counted flashes on the scintillator in Rutherford's laboratory and those who scanned the photographs from bubble-chamber experiments. Caroline Herzenberg and Ruth Howes, "Women of the Manhattan Project," Technology Review 8 (1993): 37, describe the work of women at Los Alamos, "some with degrees in mathematics and others with little technical background," who performed mathematical calculations for the design of the bomb. Amy Sue Bix, "Experiences and Voices of Eugenics Field-Workers: 'Women's Work' in Biology," Social Studies of Science 27 (1997): 625-68, reports the work of female field-workers at the Eugenics Record Office, who gathered data on individuals and families. In every case the work was subordinate to men's. See also Jane S. Wilson and Charlotte Serber, eds., Standing By and Making Do: Women of Wartime Los Alamos (Los Alamos, N.M., 1988).
20. See Margaret Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940 (Baltimore, 1982), also Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940-1972. In the 1982 volume, p. 55, Rossiter describes the late-nineteenth-century star counters in astronomical laboratories who performed computer work for male astronomers. The famed astronomer Maria Mitchell was employed as a computer for the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in the late 1860s. The term computer, meaning "one who computes," originally referred to the human who was assigned various mathematical calculations. Ute Huffman dates the use of computer to the seventeenth century, when it was used in reference to men who tracked the course of time in their calendars. For decades the terms computer and calculator were interchangeable. In fact, early computers such as the ENIAC and Mark I were called electronic calculators. See Ute Hoffmann, "Opfer und Täterinnen: Frauen in der Computergeschichte," in Micro Sisters: Digitalisierung des Alltags, Frauen und Computer, ed. Ingrid Schöll and Ina Küller (Berlin, 1988). A number of other historians have documented women's work in other sciences. For example, Peter Galison, Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (Chicago, 1997), discusses the work of women in high-energy physics laboratories, both those who counted flashes on the scintillator in Rutherford's laboratory and those who scanned the photographs from bubble-chamber experiments. Caroline Herzenberg and Ruth Howes, "Women of the Manhattan Project," Technology Review 8 (1993): 37, describe the work of women at Los Alamos, "some with degrees in mathematics and others with little technical background," who performed mathematical calculations for the design of the bomb. Amy Sue Bix, "Experiences and Voices of Eugenics Field-Workers: 'Women's Work' in Biology," Social Studies of Science 27 (1997): 625-68, reports the work of female field-workers at the Eugenics Record Office, who gathered data on individuals and families. In every case the work was subordinate to men's. See also Jane S. Wilson and Charlotte Serber, eds., Standing By and Making Do: Women of Wartime Los Alamos (Los Alamos, N.M., 1988).
21. See Margaret Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940 (Baltimore, 1982), also Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940-1972. In the 1982 volume, p. 55, Rossiter describes the late-nineteenth-century star counters in astronomical laboratories who performed computer work for male astronomers. The famed astronomer Maria Mitchell was employed as a computer for the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in the late 1860s. The term computer, meaning "one who computes," originally referred to the human who was assigned various mathematical calculations. Ute Huffman dates the use of computer to the seventeenth century, when it was used in reference to men who tracked the course of time in their calendars. For decades the terms computer and calculator were interchangeable. In fact, early computers such as the ENIAC and Mark I were called electronic calculators. See Ute Hoffmann, "Opfer und Täterinnen: Frauen in der Computergeschichte," in Micro Sisters: Digitalisierung des Alltags, Frauen und Computer, ed. Ingrid Schöll and Ina Küller (Berlin, 1988). A number of other historians have documented women's work in other sciences. For example, Peter Galison, Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (Chicago, 1997), discusses the work of women in high-energy physics laboratories, both those who counted flashes on the scintillator in Rutherford's laboratory and those who scanned the photographs from bubble-chamber experiments. Caroline Herzenberg and Ruth Howes, "Women of the Manhattan Project," Technology Review 8 (1993): 37, describe the work of women at Los Alamos, "some with degrees in mathematics and others with little technical background," who performed mathematical calculations for the design of the bomb. Amy Sue Bix, "Experiences and Voices of Eugenics Field-Workers: 'Women's Work' in Biology," Social Studies of Science 27 (1997): 625-68, reports the work of female field-workers at the Eugenics Record Office, who gathered data on individuals and families. In every case the work was subordinate to men's. See also Jane S. Wilson and Charlotte Serber, eds., Standing By and Making Do: Women of Wartime Los Alamos (Los Alamos, N.M., 1988).
22. See Rossiter, Women Scientists in America (both volumes). According to Herman Goldstine, it was the fact that women were not seeking career advancement that made them ideal workers: "In general women didn't get Ph.D.'s. You got awfully good women because they weren't breaking their backs to be smarter than the next guy.' Herman Goldstine, interview by author, Philadelphia, 16 November 1994. Goldstine also noted that the few men he encountered working on programming rarely conceived of their jobs as permanent. Rather, they were steps on the way to something better. These jobs were "never careers for them, but a way of making money for a short time." Consequently, Goldstine observes, "Men in general were lousy - the brighter the man the less likely he was to be a good programmer. . . . The men we employed were almost all men who wanted Ph.D.'s in math or physics. This [hands-on work] was a bit distasteful. I think they viewed what they were doing as something they were not going to be doing for a career. If you take a woman like Hedi Selberg [a programmer at the Institute for Advanced Study Electronic Computer Project] she probably didn't want to sit around with the baby all the time."
23. Galison cites the invention and popularization of the term "scanner girl."
24. Ibid., 176.
25. For further discussion of prewar trends in hiring practices, see Lisa Fine, The Souls of the Skyscraper: Female Clerical Workers in Chicago, 1870-1930 (Philadelphia, 1990), and Margery Davies, Women's Place is at the Typewriter: Office Work and Office Workers, 1870-1930 (Philadelphia, 1982). See also Milkman (n. 2 above), chaps. 1-3.
26. For further discussion of prewar trends in hiring practices, see Lisa Fine, The Souls of the Skyscraper: Female Clerical Workers in Chicago, 1870-1930 (Philadelphia, 1990), and Margery Davies, Women's Place is at the Typewriter: Office Work and Office Workers, 1870-1930 (Philadelphia, 1982). See also Milkman (n. 2 above), chaps. 1-3.
27. For further discussion of prewar trends in hiring practices, see Lisa Fine, The Souls of the Skyscraper: Female Clerical Workers in Chicago, 1870-1930 (Philadelphia, 1990), and Margery Davies, Women's Place is at the Typewriter: Office Work and Office Workers, 1870-1930 (Philadelphia, 1982). See also Milkman (n. 2 above), chaps. 1-3.
28. Paul Ceruzzi, "When Computers Were Human," Annals of the History of Computing 13 (1991): 242.
29. Cf. Milkman, 49: "The boundaries between 'women's' and 'men's' work changed location, rather than being eliminated. . . . Rather than hiring women workers to fill openings as vacancies occurred, managers explicitly defined some war jobs as 'suitable' for women, and others as 'unsuitable,' guided by a hastily revised idiom of sex-typing that adapted prewar traditions to the special demands of the war emergency." Both Milkman and Fine discuss how gender-specific advertisements reflect the feminization of specific occupations. Fine offers an analysis of the shifting gender imagery of some clerical occupations. On this point, however, note that focusing on the industry's language about women (in this case, the stories about the biological capacities and natural implications of womanhood - or, by extension, on the advertising techniques used to create a gendered labor force) can confuse industry ideals with women's actual practice. As Milkman's notion of the idiom of sex-typing suggests, there is indeed a disjuncture between women's prescribed place and what women actually did. This disjuncture is central to women's invisibility in technological history.
30. Goldstine interview (n. 11 above). The domain's masculinity appears in the preface of a textbook on exterior ballistics: Office of the Chief of Ordnance, The Method of Numerical Integration in Exterior Ballistics: Ordnance Textbook (Washington, D.C., 1921). "The names of the men who have contributed most to its [the text's] development, particularly Major Moulton and Professor Bliss, are mentioned in various places in the text, and to whom the writer might appropriately make personal acknowledgement, would amount practically to an enumeration of all the officers, civilian investigators, and computers who have been connected with the work in ballistics in Washington and at the Aberdeen Proving Ground."
31. The heads of the computing groups were all college graduates, as were the majority of computers.
32. "The title 'engineering computer' was created for these women, since such work before the war was done by young, junior engineers as part of their inducticn training following graduation from an engineering college." U.S. Department of Labor, "Women in Architecture and Engineering," Women's Bureau Bulletin 223-25 (1948): 56. See Sharon Hartmann Strom, Beyond the Typewriter: Gender, Class, and the Origins of Modern American Office Work, 1900-1930 (Urbana, Ill., 1992), for a discussion of similar circumstances within American businesses. To call a particular job "feminized" does not restrict it to women. Certainly there were some male computers and programmers. For a review of literature on gender and technology, see Nina Lerman, Arwen Palmer Mohun, and Ruth Oldenziel, "Versatile Tools: Gender Analysis and the History of Technology," Technology and Culture 38 (1997): 1-30.
33. "The title 'engineering computer' was created for these women, since such work before the war was done by young, junior engineers as part of their inducticn training following graduation from an engineering college." U.S. Department of Labor, "Women in Architecture and Engineering," Women's Bureau Bulletin 223-25 (1948): 56. See Sharon Hartmann Strom, Beyond the Typewriter: Gender, Class, and the Origins of Modern American Office Work, 1900-1930 (Urbana, Ill., 1992), for a discussion of similar circumstances within American businesses. To call a particular job "feminized" does not restrict it to women. Certainly there were some male computers and programmers. For a review of literature on gender and technology, see Nina Lerman, Arwen Palmer Mohun, and Ruth Oldenziel, "Versatile Tools: Gender Analysis and the History of Technology," Technology and Culture 38 (1997): 1-30.
34. "The title 'engineering computer' was created for these women, since such work before the war was done by young, junior engineers as part of their inducticn training following graduation from an engineering college." U.S. Department of Labor, "Women in Architecture and Engineering," Women's Bureau Bulletin 223-25 (1948): 56. See Sharon Hartmann Strom, Beyond the Typewriter: Gender, Class, and the Origins of Modern American Office Work, 1900-1930 (Urbana, Ill., 1992), for a discussion of similar circumstances within American businesses. To call a particular job "feminized" does not restrict it to women. Certainly there were some male computers and programmers. For a review of literature on gender and technology, see Nina Lerman, Arwen Palmer Mohun, and Ruth Oldenziel, "Versatile Tools: Gender Analysis and the History of Technology," Technology and Culture 38 (1997): 1-30.
35. The idiom of sex-typing made the sexual division of labor seem natural; differences in work capacity were considered biologically based. Evelyn Steele, editorial director of Vocational Guidance Research, writes, "It is generally agreed that womer do well at painstaking, tedious work requiring patience and dexterity of the hands. The actual fact that women's fingers are more slender than men's makes a difference. Also, women adapt themselves to repetitive jobs requiring constant alertness, nimble fingers and tireless wrists. They have the ability to work to precise tolerances, can detect variations of ten-thousandths of an inch, [and] can make careful adjustments at high speed with great accuracy"; Steele (n. 4 above), 46. Women's strengths thus lay in performing repetitive, detailed, unskilled tasks. Such statements were not new. Arguments made in favor of women working as telephone operators were similar: "The work of successful telephone operating demanded just that particular dexterity, patience and forbearance possessed by the average woman in a degree superior to that of the opposite sex." Brenda Maddox, "Women and the Switchboard," in The Social Impact of the Telephone, ed. Ithiel de Sola Pool (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), 266. See also Fine (n. 14 above), chap. 4, "The Discourse on Fitness: Science and Symbols." For a discussion of women's wartime labor as portrayed in literature and advertising, see Charles Hannon, "'The Ballad of the Sad Cafe' and Other Stories of Women's Wartime Labor," Genders 23 (1996): 97-119.
36. The idiom of sex-typing made the sexual division of labor seem natural; differences in work capacity were considered biologically based. Evelyn Steele, editorial director of Vocational Guidance Research, writes, "It is generally agreed that womer do well at painstaking, tedious work requiring patience and dexterity of the hands. The actual fact that women's fingers are more slender than men's makes a difference. Also, women adapt themselves to repetitive jobs requiring constant alertness, nimble fingers and tireless wrists. They have the ability to work to precise tolerances, can detect variations of ten-thousandths of an inch, [and] can make careful adjustments at high speed with great accuracy"; Steele (n. 4 above), 46. Women's strengths thus lay in performing repetitive, detailed, unskilled tasks. Such statements were not new. Arguments made in favor of women working as telephone operators were similar: "The work of successful telephone operating demanded just that particular dexterity, patience and forbearance possessed by the average woman in a degree superior to that of the opposite sex." Brenda Maddox, "Women and the Switchboard," in The Social Impact of the Telephone, ed. Ithiel de Sola Pool (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), 266. See also Fine (n. 14 above), chap. 4, "The Discourse on Fitness: Science and Symbols." For a discussion of women's wartime labor as portrayed in literature and advertising, see Charles Hannon, "'The Ballad of the Sad Cafe' and Other Stories of Women's Wartime Labor," Genders 23 (1996): 97-119.
37. For a further discussion of the prewar situation and the complex interaction between new technologies and the sexual division of labor, see Fine, also Davies (n. 14 above). Jobs with a more established tradition of male employment were less likely to become feminized before World War II. For example, while "clerk" and "bookkeeper" stayed largely male, feminization was more widespread in stenography because it had not been defined as male. See Milkman (n. 2 above), chap. 4. For further discussion of how new jobs were gendered, see Heidi Hartmann, Robert Kraut, and Louise Tilly, eds., Computer Chips and Paper Clips: Technology and Women's Employment, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1986), vol. 1, chap. 2.
38. See Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940 (n. 10 above), and Milkman.
39. At the time, women were concentrated in clerical roles more than in any other occupation; they comprised 54 percent of all clerical workers in 1940 and 62 percent in 1950. U.S. Department of Labor, "Changes in Women's Occupations 1940-1950," Women's Bureau Bulletin 253 (1954): 37. Clerical work encompasses a broad range of jobs, including office machine operators. The Employment and Training Administration and U.S. Employment Service's Dictionary of Occupational Titles (Washington, D.C., 1939-41) classified computing-machine operator and calculating-machine operator as entry-level clerical occupations. For further discussion of the wide range of clerical jobs, see Strom (n. 19 above) and Fine. See also David Alan Grier, "The ENIAC, the Verb 'to program' and the Emergence of Digital Computers," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 18, no. 1 (1996): 51-55.
40. At the time, women were concentrated in clerical roles more than in any other occupation; they comprised 54 percent of all clerical workers in 1940 and 62 percent in 1950. U.S. Department of Labor, "Changes in Women's Occupations 1940-1950," Women's Bureau Bulletin 253 (1954): 37. Clerical work encompasses a broad range of jobs, including office machine operators. The Employment and Training Administration and U.S. Employment Service's Dictionary of Occupational Titles (Washington, D.C., 1939-41) classified computing-machine operator and calculating-machine operator as entry-level clerical occupations. For further discussion of the wide range of clerical jobs, see Strom (n. 19 above) and Fine. See also David Alan Grier, "The ENIAC, the Verb 'to program' and the Emergence of Digital Computers," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 18, no. 1 (1996): 51-55.
41. It was part of a prior agreement with the Moore School that in times of national emergency the Aberdeen Proving Ground could commandeer the school's differential analyzer. Lydia Messer, oral history, interview by Cornelius Weygandt, 22 March 1988, University of Pennsylvania Archives, Philadelphia. Joel Shurkin, Engines of the Mind (New York, 1984), 119. BRL had apparently organized previous cooperative projects during World War I with the University of Pennsylvania. The U.S. Army Ordnance Department's Course in Exterior Ballistics: Ordnance Textbook (Washington, D.C., 1921) credits H. H. Mitchell of the University of Pennsylvania as "Master Computer, who organized the range table computation work at Aberdeen." Before 1941, the Moore School also provided computers for BRL. Nancy Stern, From ENIAC to UNIVAC: An Appraisal of the Eckert-Mauchly Computers (Bedford, Mass., 1981), 10.
42. It was part of a prior agreement with the Moore School that in times of national emergency the Aberdeen Proving Ground could commandeer the school's differential analyzer. Lydia Messer, oral history, interview by Cornelius Weygandt, 22 March 1988, University of Pennsylvania Archives, Philadelphia. Joel Shurkin, Engines of the Mind (New York, 1984), 119. BRL had apparently organized previous cooperative projects during World War I with the University of Pennsylvania. The U.S. Army Ordnance Department's Course in Exterior Ballistics: Ordnance Textbook (Washington, D.C., 1921) credits H. H. Mitchell of the University of Pennsylvania as "Master Computer, who organized the range table computation work at Aberdeen." Before 1941, the Moore School also provided computers for BRL. Nancy Stern, From ENIAC to UNIVAC: An Appraisal of the Eckert-Mauchly Computers (Bedford, Mass., 1981), 10.
43. Shurkin, 128.
44. Shurkin, 127-28.
45. Stern, 13-14.
46. Not all women's jobs ranked lower or earned less than men's, but the history of female employment shows a persistent pattern into which the BRL's policies fit. For example, see Sharon Hartmann Strom, "'Machines Instead of Clerks': Technology and the Feminization of Bookkeeping, 1910-1950," in Hartmann, Kraut, and Tilly (n. 21 above), 2:63-97. See Fritz (n. 3 above) for women's accounts of the work they performed and H. Polachek, "Before the ENIAC," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 19, no. 2 (1997): 25-30, for the complexities of computations for preparing firing tables.
47. Not all women's jobs ranked lower or earned less than men's, but the history of female employment shows a persistent pattern into which the BRL's policies fit. For example, see Sharon Hartmann Strom, "'Machines Instead of Clerks': Technology and the Feminization of Bookkeeping, 1910-1950," in Hartmann, Kraut, and Tilly (n. 21 above), 2:63-97. See Fritz (n. 3 above) for women's accounts of the work they performed and H. Polachek, "Before the ENIAC," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 19, no. 2 (1997): 25-30, for the complexities of computations for preparing firing tables.
48. Adele Goldstine received her bachelor's degree from Hunter College in 1941, then a master's from the University of Michigan in 1942. In 1942 she taught mathematics in the public school system in Philadelphia. From late 1943 to March 1946 she worked for the ENIAC project at the Moore School and spent part of 1944 at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. In 1948, she resumed graduate study at New York University. She became a consultant to the Atomic Energy Commission project effective 7 June 1947, working on making the ENIAC into a stored-program computer. Herman Goldstine recalls that "Los Alamos was the major user of the ENIAC so it was [John] Von Neumann [who was using it . Adele was his assistant. I was also a consultant but she was doing the major part." Goldstine interview (n. 11 above).
49. Ibid.
50. Harold Pender to George McCelland, 23 July 1943, Information Files: World War II: WAC Training: Miscellaneous, University of Pennsylvania Archives.
51. Daily Pennsylvania, 29 September 1943, untitled clipping in Information Files: World War II: WAC Training: Miscellaneous, University of Pennsylvania Archives. While women received instructions from civilians (not an unusual practice in the armed services), they were commanded by military second lieutenants and corporals. The WAC officer in charge of the detachment on campus was Lt. Mildred Fleming.
52. Mattie Treadwell, United States Army in World War Two Special Series: The Women's Army Corps (Washington, D.C., 1954), 221.
53. Adele Goldstine to J. G. Brainerd, n.d., "Monday Night," Information Files: World War II: WAC Training: Miscellaneous, University of Pennsylvania Archives. The ES&MWTesses were the women involved in the Engineering, Science, and Management War Training courses. J. G. Brainerd was a professor at the Moore School and liaison with U.S. Army Ordnance.
54. Helen Rogan, Mixed Company: Women in the Modern Army (New York, 1981), 41; Treadwell, chap. 4. Building on the work of historians such as Milkman (n. 2 above) and Fine (n. 14 above), who have analyzed the need for women in men's jobs to maintain femininity, Leisa Meyer has described the sexual politics of women's entrance into military service; see "Creating G.I. Jane: The Regulation of Sexuality and Sexual Behavior in the Women's Army Corps During World War Two," Feminist Studies 18 (1992) 581-601, and Creating G.I. Jane: Sexuality and Power in the Women's Army Corps during World War Two (New York, 1996).
55. Helen Rogan, Mixed Company: Women in the Modern Army (New York, 1981), 41; Treadwell, chap. 4. Building on the work of historians such as Milkman (n. 2 above) and Fine (n. 14 above), who have analyzed the need for women in men's jobs to maintain femininity, Leisa Meyer has described the sexual politics of women's entrance into military service; see "Creating G.I. Jane: The Regulation of Sexuality and Sexual Behavior in the Women's Army Corps During World War Two," Feminist Studies 18 (1992) 581-601, and Creating G.I. Jane: Sexuality and Power in the Women's Army Corps during World War Two (New York, 1996).
56. Helen Rogan, Mixed Company: Women in the Modern Army (New York, 1981), 41; Treadwell, chap. 4. Building on the work of historians such as Milkman (n. 2 above) and Fine (n. 14 above), who have analyzed the need for women in men's jobs to maintain femininity, Leisa Meyer has described the sexual politics of women's entrance into military service; see "Creating G.I. Jane: The Regulation of Sexuality and Sexual Behavior in the Women's Army Corps During World War Two," Feminist Studies 18 (1992) 581-601, and Creating G.I. Jane: Sexuality and Power in the Women's Army Corps during World War Two (New York, 1996).
57. "Topics Included in the Engineering, Science, and Management War Training Courses for Members of the W.A.C. from Aberdeen Proving Ground," Information Files: World War II: WAC Training: Miscellaneous, University of Pennsylvania Archives. There was a second training course in 1945; Herman Goldstine Papers, American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia (hereinafter Goldstine Papers).
58. Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to Von Neumann (n. 3 above), 134; Fritz (n. 2 above). The histories of other sciences, in both Britain and the United States, show scientists' wives filling a number of the more senior women's positions in science. For example, Cecil Powell's wife Isobel led the scanning girls in Powell's laboratory, and Janet Landis Alvarez, wife of Luis Alvarez, trained the women bubble-chamber scanners at Berkeley. Among the computers at NACA were a number of engineers' wives. At the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, John Von Neumann's second wife, Klara Dan Von Neumann, became a programmer and helped to program and code some of the largest programs of the 1950s. Also at Los Alamos were Kay Manley, wife of John Manley, and Mici Teller, wife of Edward Teller, who performed mathematical calculations for the design of the bomb. For further discussion of couples in the sciences, see Helena M. Pycior, Nancy G. Slack, and Pnina G. Abir-Am, eds., Creative Couples in the Sciences (New Brunswick, N.J., 1996). According to Fritz, at least four computers married engineers at the Moore School after 1946. Frances Bilas married Homer Spence, Kathleen McNulty became Mauchly's second wife, and Elizabeth Snyder married John W. Holberton. According to Goldstine Betty Jean Jennings (Bartik) married a Moore School engineer. Also at the Moore School were Eckert's first wife, a draftsman for the ENIAC project; Alice Burks, whose husband Arthur worked with Eckert and Mauchly on the ENIAC design; and Emma Lehmer, wife of Derrick Henry Lehmer, a computer and table compiler.
59. Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to Von Neumann (n. 3 above), 134; Fritz (n. 2 above). The histories of other sciences, in both Britain and the United States, show scientists' wives filling a number of the more senior women's positions in science. For example, Cecil Powell's wife Isobel led the scanning girls in Powell's laboratory, and Janet Landis Alvarez, wife of Luis Alvarez, trained the women bubble-chamber scanners at Berkeley. Among the computers at NACA were a number of engineers' wives. At the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, John Von Neumann's second wife, Klara Dan Von Neumann, became a programmer and helped to program and code some of the largest programs of the 1950s. Also at Los Alamos were Kay Manley, wife of John Manley, and Mici Teller, wife of Edward Teller, who performed mathematical calculations for the design of the bomb. For further discussion of couples in the sciences, see Helena M. Pycior, Nancy G. Slack, and Pnina G. Abir-Am, eds., Creative Couples in the Sciences (New Brunswick, N.J., 1996). According to Fritz, at least four computers married engineers at the Moore School after 1946. Frances Bilas married Homer Spence, Kathleen McNulty became Mauchly's second wife, and Elizabeth Snyder married John W. Holberton. According to Goldstine Betty Jean Jennings (Bartik) married a Moore School engineer. Also at the Moore School were Eckert's first wife, a draftsman for the ENIAC project; Alice Burks, whose husband Arthur worked with Eckert and Mauchly on the ENIAC design; and Emma Lehmer, wife of Derrick Henry Lehmer, a computer and table compiler.
60. "Thanks for the Memory," presumably written by WACs at the Moore School, ca. 1943-44, Goldstine Papers.
61. In a retrospective analysis, Goldstine framed the computers' job as a prime candidate for mechanization due to its low skill: "Computing is thus subhuman in that it calls on very few of man's manifold abilities and yet is fundamental to many of his other activities, as Leibnitz so clearly perceived. This then is basically why computing was chosen as a human task to be mechanized"; Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to Von Neumann, 343.
62. It is unclear exactly when this shift occurred. It was at least as early as February 1945, when George Stibbitz wrote in a report on relay computers for the National Defense Research Committee: "Human agents will be referred to as 'operators to distinguish them from 'computers' (machines)." Ceruzzi (n. 15 above), 240.
63. Goldstine interview (n. 11 above). Interestingly, Milkman (n. 2 above) has discussed how jobs perceived as feminine in some places were quintessentially masculine in others - often within the same industry. The idiom of sex-typing, while consistent in individual factories, often differed among factories manufacturing the same product. On the Mark II computer at the Navy's Dahlgren Proving Ground, for instance, operators were male. This area deserves further study.
64. The terms hard and soft, as used to describe gendered tasks, are significant. For the hard and soft sciences, hard mastery and soft mastery are binary distinctions in science and technology implying that the "hard" ways of knowing are men's dorrain; "soft" ways of knowing are more feminine. Goldstine, when interviewed, reported that he had resisted "there being a distinction" between hardware and software. He observed: "At the beginning, the hardware was the important thing, but as soon as you get beyond the bottleneck of making the computer," programming software became a new bottleneck. "They've automated the bejeezus out of making chips but not software." Irenically, by the time the process of making hardware was automated programming software had become a man's job and acquired higher status than it had had in the 1940s. See, for example, Phillip Kraft, "The Routinization of Computer Programming," Sociology of Work and Occupations 6 (1977): 139-55.
65. Jeanne Holm, Women in the Military: An Unfinished Revolution, rev. ed. (Novato, Calif., 1992), 73. Social mores, as well as a variety of rules and regulations, meant that women's qualifications had to surpass men's before they could compete for higher-level jobs within academia (including government-sponsored research) and industry. The army had higher selection criteria for female officers and enlisted personnel "than those for men in the same service" (p. 50). P.L. 110, the legislation converting the WAC to full military status, specified that "its commanding officer could never be promoted above the rank of colonel and its other officers above the rank of lieutenant colonel; its officers could never command men unless specifically ordered to do so by Army superiors" (Treadwell [n. 33 above], 220). Additionally, the War Department in 1943 set the ratio of female officers to enlisted women at one to twenty. Comparable figures for men were one to ten. Using the excuse of a surplus of male officers, it capped WAC officers by limiting entrants to the WAC Officer Candidate School but did not impose a similar limitation on male officers. None of the six women ENlAC operators held high status in academia or the military. Men at the Moore School who were not affiliated with the army, such as Harry Huskey or Arthur Burks, had visible academic appointments. See Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940-1972 (n. 9 above), for more on hierarchies, promotions, and payment in science.
66. Jeanne Holm, Women in the Military: An Unfinished Revolution, rev. ed. (Novato, Calif., 1992), 73. Social mores, as well as a variety of rules and regulations, meant that women's qualifications had to surpass men's before they could compete for higher-level jobs within academia (including government-sponsored research) and industry. The army had higher selection criteria for female officers and enlisted personnel "than those for men in the same service" (p. 50). P.L. 110, the legislation converting the WAC to full military status, specified that "its commanding officer could never be promoted above the rank of colonel and its other officers above the rank of lieutenant colonel; its officers could never command men unless specifically ordered to do so by Army superiors" (Treadwell [n. 33 above], 220). Additionally, the War Department in 1943 set the ratio of female officers to enlisted women at one to twenty. Comparable figures for men were one to ten. Using the excuse of a surplus of male officers, it capped WAC officers by limiting entrants to the WAC Officer Candidate School but did not impose a similar limitation on male officers. None of the six women ENlAC operators held high status in academia or the military. Men at the Moore School who were not affiliated with the army, such as Harry Huskey or Arthur Burks, had visible academic appointments. See Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940-1972 (n. 9 above), for more on hierarchies, promotions, and payment in science.
67. Shurkin (n. 24 above), 188.
68. Kraft (n. 42 above), 141.
69. Fritz (n. 2 above), 19-20.
70. A number of historians have disputed de-skilling assumptions. For example, Sharon Hartmann Strom, "'Machines Instead of Clerks'" (n. 28 above), 64, describes in the case of bookkeeping machine operators how "workers continued to apply hidden skills of judgement and to integrate a number of tasks, particularly to jobs in the middle levels of bookeeping, even though these jobs required the use of machines." Fine (n. 14 above), 84, claims that the stenographer-typist's job was more challenging tha i the copyist's whom she replaced. For a review of literature on gender, mechanizatien, and deskilling, see Nina Lerman, Arwen Palmer Mohum, and Ruth Oldenziel, "The Shoulders We Stand On and the View from Here: Historiography and Directions for Research," Technology and Culture 38 ( 1997): 9-30. See also Kenneth Lipartito, "When Women Were Switches: Technology, Work, and Gender in the Telephone Industry, 1890-1920," American Historical Review 99 (1994): 1075-111.
71. A number of historians have disputed de-skilling assumptions. For example, Sharon Hartmann Strom, "'Machines Instead of Clerks'" (n. 28 above), 64, describes in the case of bookkeeping machine operators how "workers continued to apply hidden skills of judgement and to integrate a number of tasks, particularly to jobs in the middle levels of bookeeping, even though these jobs required the use of machines." Fine (n. 14 above), 84, claims that the stenographer-typist's job was more challenging tha i the copyist's whom she replaced. For a review of literature on gender, mechanizatien, and deskilling, see Nina Lerman, Arwen Palmer Mohum, and Ruth Oldenziel, "The Shoulders We Stand On and the View from Here: Historiography and Directions for Research," Technology and Culture 38 ( 1997): 9-30. See also Kenneth Lipartito, "When Women Were Switches: Technology, Work, and Gender in the Telephone Industry, 1890-1920," American Historical Review 99 (1994): 1075-111.
72. Nina Lerman, "'Preparing for the Duties and Practical Business of Life': Technological Knowledge and Social Structure in Mid-19th-century Philadelphia," Technology and Culture 38 (1997): 36. Judy Wajcman, Feminism Confronts Technology (University Park, Penn., 1991), 37, observes: "Definitions of skill can have more to do with ideological and social constructions than with technical competencies which are pos" sessed by men and not by women."
73. Nina Lerman, "'Preparing for the Duties and Practical Business of Life': Technological Knowledge and Social Structure in Mid-19th-century Philadelphia," Technology and Culture 38 (1997): 36. Judy Wajcman, Feminism Confronts Technology (University Park, Penn., 1991), 37, observes: "Definitions of skill can have more to do with ideological and social constructions than with technical competencies which are pos" sessed by men and not by women."
74. Shurkin, 188.
75. Ibid., 189.
76. C. Dianne Martin, "ENIAC: Press Conference That Shook the World," IEEE Technology and Society Magazine 14, no. 4 (1995): 3-10. Because the problem was classified, the equations remained concealed.
77. Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to Von Neumann (n. 3 above), 229. For details of the kinds of calculations performed using ENIAC, see Arthur W. Burks and Alice R. Burks, "The ENIAC: First General-Purpose Electronic Computer," Annals of the History of Computing 3 (1981): 310-89. The Burks were another significant husband and wife team, publishing their story together; Alice R. Burks and Arthur W. Burks, The First Electronic Computer: The Atanasoff Story (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1988).
78. Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to Von Neumann (n. 3 above), 229. For details of the kinds of calculations performed using ENIAC, see Arthur W. Burks and Alice R. Burks, "The ENIAC: First General-Purpose Electronic Computer," Annals of the History of Computing 3 (1981): 310-89. The Burks were another significant husband and wife team, publishing their story together; Alice R. Burks and Arthur W. Burks, The First Electronic Computer: The Atanasoff Story (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1988).
79. Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to Von Neumann (n. 3 above), 229. For details of the kinds of calculations performed using ENIAC, see Arthur W. Burks and Alice R. Burks, "The ENIAC: First General-Purpose Electronic Computer," Annals of the History of Computing 3 (1981): 310-89. The Burks were another significant husband and wife team, publishing their story together; Alice R. Burks and Arthur W. Burks, The First Electronic Computer: The Atanasoff Story (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1988).
80. Fritz (n. 2 above), 20-21. Goldstine recalled bringing Douglas Hartree, a physicist who had built a differential analyzer in Britain, to the United States for a visit. "I got Kay McNulty to be his programmer and she was good and intelligent. The girls soon branched off independently and it was during that period that my wife was making ENIAC into a stored program computer"; Goldstine interview (n. 11 above).
81. See, for example, Bruno Latour, Science in Action (Cambridge, 1987).
82. U.S. War Department, Bureau of Public Relations, "Ordnance Department Develops All-Electronic Calculating Machines," press release, February 1946, Goldstine Papers.
83. U.S. War Department, Bureau of Public Relations, "History of Development of Computing Devices," press release, 15-16 February 1946, Goldstine Papers.
84. For media characterizations of ENIAC, see C. Dianne Martin, "The Myth of the Awesome Thinking Machine," Communications of the ACM 36, no. 4 (1993): 125, 127; see also Martin, "ENlAC" (n. 51 above), 3-10. Like the laundry industry that made its employees invisible by publicizing the
85. For media characterizations of ENIAC, see C. Dianne Martin, "The Myth of the Awesome Thinking Machine," Communications of the ACM 36, no. 4 (1993): 125, 127; see also Martin, "ENlAC" (n. 51 above), 3-10. Like the laundry industry that made its employees invisible by publicizing the tireless machines, the ENIAC was portrayed as doing almost all of the work; Arwen Mohun, "Laundrymen Construct their World: Gender and the Transformation of a Domestic Task to an Industrial Process," Technology and Culture 38 (1997): 97-120.
86. Steven Shapin, "The House of Experiment in Seventeenth-Century England," Isis 79 (1988): 395.
87. T. R. Kennedy, "Electronic Computer Flashes Answers, May Speed Engineering," New York Times, 15 February 1946.
88. Ibid.
89. The NACA memorandum (n. 15 above) specifically used she to describe the computers in its service. Women played salient roles in the demonstration of many domestic and business technologies, from sewing machines to typewriters to IBM office products, making their omission here all the more pointed.
90. See, for example, Popular Science Monthly, October 1946, 212.
91. Herman Goldstine to Captain J. J. Power, Office of the Chief of Ordnance, 17 January 1946, Goldstine Papers.
92. ENIAC file appended to Goldstine to Power, 17 January 1746.
93. Horace K. Woodward Jr. to Adele Goldstine, 23 February 1946, Goldstine Papers.
94. While Adele Goldstine did not receive media acknowledgement, she clearly had some status among her colleagues at the Moore School as the only woman working on the machine's hardware. Initially, she oversaw Holberton. As head of the WAC course, despite her civilian status, she had frequent contact with top administrators at both the Moore School and the Aberdeen Proving Ground. In a publicity folder, biographical profiles on approximately a dozen staff members at the Moore School connected with the ENIAC include J. Presper Eckert, John W. Mauchly, Herman H. Goldstine, John G. Brainerd, Arthur Burks, Harry Huskey, Cpl. Irwin Goldstein, and Pfc. Spence. Adele Goldstine is the only woman included.
95. The affidavit is included in a letter from Harry Pugh, at Fish, Richardson, and Neave, to Herman Goldstine, 12 December 1961, Goldstine Papers.
96. Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to Von Neumann (n. 3 above), 200.
97. Ibid., 330.
98. Ibid., 255 n. 4.
99. "Studies at Penn Aided Artillery," undated clipping from unidentified newspaper, ENIAC Publicity Folder, Goldstine Papers.
100. See, for example, Allen Rose, "Lightning Strikes Mathematics," Popular Science Monthly, April 1946, 85, photo caption: "T. K. Sharpless, of the Moore School of Engineering, sets a dial on the Eniac's initiating unit, which contains some of the master controls of the huge, complex mechanics. . . . Mr. Sharpless designed some Eniac equipment."
101. Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, in Laboratory Life (Beverley Hills, Calif., 1979), 219, point out that "a key feature of the hierarchy is the extent to which some people are regarded as replaceable."
102. Rupp (n. 4 above), 161.
103. Ibid., 161-62.
104. U.S. Department of Labor, "The Outlook for Women in Mathematics and Statistics" (n. 8 above), 9-11. See also U.S. Department of Labor, "A Preview as to Women Workers in Transition from War to Peace," Women's Bureau Special Bulletin, 1944; Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940-1972 (n. 9 above), chap. 2.
105. U.S. Department of Labor, "The Outlook for Women in Mathematics and Statistics" (n. 8 above), 9-11. See also U.S. Department of Labor, "A Preview as to Women Workers in Transition from War to Peace," Women's Bureau Special Bulletin, 1944; Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940-1972 (n. 9 above), chap. 2.
106. U.S. Department of Labor, "The Outlook for Women," 11.
107. Army Service Forces Office of the Chief of Ordnance, Washington, D.C., to personnel at BRL, 29 January 1946, Goldstine Papers.
108. Herzenberg and Howes (n. 10 above).
109. U.S. Department of Labor, "Employment Opportunities for Women Mathematicians and Statisticians," Women's Bureau Bulletin 262 (1956): vi.
110. For these women's later employment histories, see Fritz (n. 2 above), 17.
111. Margaret Rossiter, "The Matilda Effect in Science," Social Studies of Science 23 (1993): 325-41.
112. U.S. War Department, You're Going to Hire Women, booklet produced to persuade managers and supervisors to hire women, cited in Chester Gregory, Women in Defense Work During World War II: An Analysis of the Labor Problem and Women's Rights (New York, 1974), 12.
113. For example, the Women's Bureau Bulletin 262 (1956) features several pictures of women working with computers and mentions women coding and programming.
114. Gerda Lerner, "The Necessity of History," in Why History Matters: Life and Thought (New York, 1997), 119.