Celebrate this milestone of the worlds first all electronic, programmable computer!
Women of ENIAC
PEOPLE OF PHILLY CREATING THE COMPUTER AGE
Women of ENIAC by Kathy Kleiman
Fans of Dava Sobel’s The Glass Universe and Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures are in for a treat” (Publishers Weeky) with this untold, World War II-era story of the six American women who programmed the world's first modern computer in Philadelphia.
After the end of World War II, the race for technological supremacy sped on. Top-secret research into ballistics and computing, begun during the war to aid those on the front lines, continued across the United States as engineers and programmers rushed to complete their confidential assignments. Among them were six pioneering women, tasked with figuring out how to program the world's first general-purpose, programmable, all-electronic computer--better known as the ENIAC— even though there were no instruction codes or programming languages in existence. While most students of computer history are aware of this innovative machine, the great contributions of the women who programmed it were never told -- until now.
Over the course of a decade, Kathy Kleiman met with four of the original six ENIAC Programmers and recorded extensive interviews with the women about their work. PROVING GROUND restores these women to their rightful place as technological revolutionaries. As the tech world continues to struggle with gender imbalance and its far-reaching consequences, the story of the ENIAC Programmers' groundbreaking work is more urgently necessary than ever before, and PROVING GROUND is the celebration they deserve.
Kathy Kleiman Writes about Women of ENIAC
"Everyone told Kathy Kleiman that the women she sought did not exist. Thankfully, she didn't believe them. In Proving Ground, Kleiman pursues her subjects with the instincts of an investigative journalist, uncovering the stories of six groundbreaking women who battled sexism, complex trajectory equations, and blown vacuum tubes in order to program the world's first digital computer. With unforgettable, detailed prose, Kleiman blends the history of early computing with the lives of the women who made modern programming possible. Proving Ground is a book so deeply inspiring that it has the power to completely alter how we see the technology field and the role of women within it."
Nathalia Holt, New York Times bestselling author of Rise of the Rocket Girls
Women of ENIAC
We Seek Offspring of Women of ENIAC
Part of the mission of ENIAC Day is to identify, locate and include in this celebration the diligent efforts of the original workers on the ENIAC in the time period 1944 through 1950.
If you know any of the women in the image shown above, please contact us so that we can include them in the ENIAC Day 75th Anniversary Celebration.
Articles – If you have news articles from your family archives mentioning these or other women who were part of the early ENIAC efforts, we seek them in scanned digital format to include in the celebration.
Mission – Part of the mission of ENIAC Day is to identify ALL the family members of those who worked on the ENIAC, both men and women.
Companies – Are there companies who provided components or services to the ENIAC who were instrumental in its success? We seek the women who were part of those companies and their key involvement in the success of ENIAC.
Executive profiles – We seek details about companies who had women in leadership position who were part of the ENIAC design, construction and operation.
Learn More
ENIAC’s rich history was explored in the 2016 book ENIAC in Action by Thomas Haigh, Mark Priestley and Crispin Rope. To learn more and for free downloads of their research papers visit www.eniacinaction.com
Here below is a 4 minute video overview on the ENIAC’s Legacy which very concisely summarizes some of the key points from the book.