Author(s): Kathy Kleiman (Contribution by)

History

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. Among those researchers were six pioneering women. Kay, Fran, Betty, Marlyn, Ruth, and Jean all had dreams beyond the conventional, hoping to break into the male-dominated world of mathematics and contribute to the war effort however they could. Their goals would prove attainable when the Army began recruiting women for a classified project. Given the formidable task of figuring out how to program the world's first general-purpose, programmable, all-electronic computer-better known as the ENIAC-the women labored tirelessly. While most students of computer history are aware of this innovative machine, the great contributions of the women who programmed it were f never told-until now.