The Computers Documentary – By Brianna Hope Beaton
In 1946, six brilliant women programmed the first all-electronic, programmable computer, the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer). This was a project run by the U.S. Army as part of a secret project. Their names are as follows:
- Frances Bilas Spence (1922 – 2013)
- Jean Jennings Bartik (1924 – 2011)
- Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer (1922 – 2008)
- Kathleen “Kay” McNulty Mauchly Antonelli (1921 – 2006)
- Frances Elizabeth “Betty” Holberton (1917 – 2001)
- Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum (1924 – 1986)
These women learned to program a computer without the programming languages and tools that we have today. With all the programming that was completed the ENIAC ran a ballistic trajectory flawlessly. However when the ENIAC was presented to everyone, these women never received credit and their story vanished until now.
Kathy
Kleiman, Founder of the ENIAC Programmers Project and Co-Producer and Co-Writer of The Computers documentary took notice of this story when she found a number of photographs of the ENIAC project and wanted to find about the women who were in the pictures. She was told that they were models, but they didn’t look like models. They looked like they knew a lot about the computers and were the actual programmers. With further research on these women, she wanted to share their amazing story with everyone that would listen.
The Computers is a documentary that tells about these six brilliant women and their story of programming in the mid 1900s. It is not your stereotypical documentary of men performing these jobs, but of women.
I am in awe of these incredible women because they opened the door for so many females to be in the technology world. It’s an inspiring story that I wish everyone could watch. These computing pioneers were not only women, but men too.
