One of my favorite Women-in-Technology stories
Back when I was Editor of Computer Dealer News magazine, I used to host a Women of the Channel event around this time each year. I loved it because it gave women from all walks of life the chance to share their journeys and triumphs in what is still a tough, male-dominated industry.
It is my belief that women have always shaped the very foundations of computing. One of my favorite examples takes us back to 1945, to what I like to call the ENIAC computing miracle.
Six brilliant women programmed the world’s first electronic digital computer, the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer). They did it without manuals or training. Yet for decades, their contributions were erased, overshadowed by the damaging assumption that programming wasn’t valuable work especially when done by women.
The ENIAC Six would have been lost to history if not for the determined Kathy Kleiman who came across old photos of women standing beside the ENIAC (pictured). Curators dismissed them as models, but Kleiman suspected otherwise. She was right. These women were the first programmers hired for the top-secret task of programming the ENIAC. Kleiman later chronicled their story in Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World’s First Modern Computer (2022).
ENIAC itself was a behemoth: 8 feet tall, 80 feet long, and weighing more than 60,000 pounds. While engineers built the hardware, Betty Holberton, Jean Bartik, Kay McNulty, Ruth Teitelbaum, Marlyn Meltzer, and Frances Spence figured out how to make it actually work. Barred at first from the lab for security reasons, they studied only blueprints and logic diagrams. From scratch, they built algorithms, flowcharts, and routines. Then they did the impossible; they physically rewired the machine by plugging thousands of cables into place. All of this without a keyboard.
When unveiled in 1946 the ENIAC was capable of 5,000 calculations per second. The headlines went to the machine and the male engineers. The six women who made it function weren’t invited to the demo and their names were absent from the news reports. Programming was dismissed as clerical, because women did it.
The consequences were long-lasting. As computing gained prominence, men dominated the field and the “male genius coder” stereotype took root. Yet the ENIAC Six kept innovating: Holberton wrote the first software application, Bartik worked on memory systems, and McNulty helped invent reusable code.
I’ve always believed IT needs balance to grow long term. Women have always been integral to computing’s history. By telling the stories of pioneers like the ENIAC Six, we can inspire future generations and show every girl in tech that she’s not an exception, but she’s part of a powerful legacy.
Did you enjoy learning about the ENIAC Six? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
#WomenInTech #WomenInChannel #ComputerHistory
Astronomy and space popularizer, Lisp & retrocomputing enthusiast, podcaster
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