Proving Ground: The Untold Story of Six Women Who Programmed The World's First Super Computer
Book Talk by Kathryn Kleiman, Senior Policy Fellow
Registration Required
October 26th | 5:00 - 6:00 pm | Hybrid | YT16
4:30 - 5:00pm - Book Sales
5:00 - 6:00pm - Book Talk and Q&A
6:00 - 7:00 pm - Reception, Book Sales and Signing
About the Book
Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World’s First Modern Computer tells the story of six women hired by the army to program “the world’s first all-electronic, programmable, general-purpose computer,” known as the ENIAC, to calculate missile trajectories during World War II. The women - Frances Elizabeth Snyder Holberton, Betty Jean Jennings, Kathleen McNulty, Marlyn Wescoff, Frances Bilas, and Ruth Lichterman - worked without any manuals or even existing programming languages, yet their work laid the foundation for the computing revolution.
For a fuller description of the project, see https://www.wcl.american.edu/impact/initiatives-programs/pijip/news/new-publication-proving-ground-by-kathryn-kleiman/