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March 24, 2009
Women's Work
The women of Bletchley Park
During World War II, the British required large numbers of operators for their encryption-cracking machines. They recruited women to do this work:
"What is particularly significant about the women at Bletchley Park and its outstations was that they were recruited as the first machine operators and did not replace men, as was the usual procedure in other types of war work.
The first batch of WRNS were despatched as an experiment, although it was doubted at the time if they would be able to do the work. However, the women demonstrated clearly that they could operate the machines efficiently and they proved their worth in the war effort."
— British Computer Society, "Women of Bletchley Park"
The ENIAC Programmers
The U.S. also relied on women during World War II to program the ENIAC to calculate trajectories. Female mathematicians were recruited for this work. They were not permitted to see the machine during their training, and there was no documentation, so they had to learn from engineering schematics. They were classified by the Army as "sub-professional", and largely disregarded by both their male colleagues and history until recently. A few photos of the women working on the ENIAC do exist, however.
U.S. Army Photo - Standing: Ester Gerston, Crouching: Gloria Ruth Gorden
A fascinating interview with ENIAC programmer Jean Jennings Bartik aired on WUNC several months ago - unfortunately, the podcast seems to be gone.
The Voder Operators
Long fascinated by electronic music, I was intrigued by the Voder, a machine demonstrated at the 1939 World's Fair by Bell Labs that could speak in something recognizable as a human voice.
"For all its gimmickry, the Voder was difficult to manage, a male persona literally played by women. Only trained telephone operators, the disembodied voices of the switchboard, had the hand-ear coordination to give the machine the social skills to work the room, a sort of remedial Speak & Spell exercise. A simple phrase (“I am not wearing a bear suit”) called for a series of deft key and foot pedal movements."
— Sarah Frere Jones, "The New Yorker"
For AdaLovelaceDay09
Posted by lisa at March 24, 2009 11:15 AM
ok, so a) your comment won't post right away because i have to approve it first and b) you might get a server error but your comment probably posted anyway and c) previewing doesn't work so i've removed the preview button.