Jean Bartik
Bartik studied mathematics in school then began work at the University of Pennsylvania, first manually calculating ballistics trajectories and then using ENIAC to do so.[3][4][5] In her childhood, she would ride on horseback to visit her grandmother, who bought the young girl a newspaper to read every day and became a role model for the rest of her life.Although rejected by IBM, Jennings was hired by the University of Pennsylvania to work for Army Ordnance at Aberdeen Proving Ground, calculating ballistics trajectories by hand.[14] Bartik and five other women (Betty Holberton, Marlyn Wescoff, Kathleen McNulty, Ruth Teitelbaum, and Frances Spence) were chosen to be the main programmers for the ENIAC.[11] Initially, they were not allowed to see the ENIAC's hardware at all since it was still classified and they had not received security clearance; they had to learn how to program the machine solely through studying schematic diagrams.[6][13][18] Bartik and the other ENIAC female programmers learned to physically modify the machine, moving switches and rerouting cables, in order to program it.[17][18] In addition to performing the original ballistic trajectories they were hired to compute, the six female programmers soon became operators on the Los Alamos nuclear calculations, and generally expanded the programming repertoire of the machine.[15] The ENIAC proved that it operated faster than the Mark I, a well known electromechanical machine at Harvard, and also showed that the work that would take a "human computer" 40 hours to complete could be done in 20 seconds.[8] Following the demonstration, in March 1946, she received a front-page feature in the Gentry County-based Stanberry Headlight, where it was written that, "[t]o acquaintances here of Miss Jennings, it is no great surprise to know that she is holding such an important position", due to her academic esteems.[9] Bartik was later asked to form and lead a group of programmers to convert the ENIAC into a stored program computer, working closely with John von Neumann, Dick Clippinger,[19] and Adele Goldstine.[8][22][12][26] After getting her master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1967 and making the decision to divorce her husband, Bartik joined the Auerbach Corporation writing and editing technical reports on minicomputers.[6][11] Bartik remained with Auerbach for eight years, then moved among positions with a variety of other companies for the rest of her career as a manager, writer, and engineer.[8][22][12][7] Starting in 1996, once the importance of their role in the development of computing was re-discovered, Bartik along with Betty Holberton and Bartik's other friend of over 60 years Kathleen Antonelli (ENIAC programmer and wife of ENIAC co-inventor John Mauchly) began to finally receive the acknowledgement and honors for their pioneering work in the early field of computing.The film centered around in-depth interviews of three of the six women programmers, focusing on the commendable patriotic contributions they made during World War II.
Jean JenningsElizabeth Joan JenningsElizabeth JenningsAlanthus Grove, MissouriNorthwest Missouri State Teachers CollegeUniversity of PennsylvaniaComputer Pioneer AwardIEEE Computer SocietyEckert–Mauchly Computer CorporationAuerbach PublishersWITI Hall of FameComputer History Museumballistics trajectoriesBetty HolbertonRuth TeitelbaumKathleen AntonelliMarlyn MeltzerFrances SpenceprogrammingUNIVACDrupalGentry County, MissouriAlanthus GroveAlanthusone-room schoolsoftballsalutatorianNorthwest Missouri State UniversityFran BilasUnited States Armyhuman computerAberdeen Proving GroundballisticstrajectoriesMarlyn WescoffKathleen McNultysubroutinesnestingLos AlamosMark IJohn MauchlyJohn EckertGentry CountyJohn von NeumannAdele GoldstineUNIVAC Imagnetic tapepunch cardsNorthrop Aircraftlogic circuitsSORT/MERGEEckert-Mauchly CorporationRemington RandWall Street JournalAuerbach Corporationminicomputerscongestive heart failurePoughkeepsie, New YorkMaryville, MissouriWomen in Technology InternationalHall of FameIEEE Computer Pioneer AwardList of pioneers in computer scienceTimeline of women in scienceBartik, Jean JenningsThe New York TimesAbbate, JanetCharles Babbage InstituteComputingBefore 19501950–1979ScientificWomen in computingComputer scienceAlgorithmsArtificial intelligenceBinary prefixesCryptographyMachine learningQuantum computing and communicationSoftwareFree and open-source softwareHypertext technologyOperating systemsDOS familyWindowsProgramming languagesVirtualization developmentMalwareInternetInternet conflictsWeb browsersWeb search enginesJohn Vincent AtanasoffCharles BabbageJohn BackusGeorge BooleVint CerfJohn CockeStephen CookEdsger W. DijkstraJ. Presper EckertLois HaibtMargaret HamiltonGrace HopperDavid A. HuffmanBob KahnBrian KernighanAndrew KoenigSemyon KorsakovNancy LevesonAda LovelaceDonald KnuthJoseph KruskalDouglas McIlroyKlára Dán von NeumannDennis RitchieGuido van RossumClaude ShannonBjarne StroustrupKen ThompsonLinus TorvaldsAlan TuringPaul VixieLarry WallStephen Wolfram