{"id":33193,"date":"2011-02-16T10:24:46","date_gmt":"2011-02-16T15:24:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=33193"},"modified":"2014-02-11T18:23:51","modified_gmt":"2014-02-11T23:23:51","slug":"high-tech-rosies-in-world-war-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/02\/16\/high-tech-rosies-in-world-war-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"High-Tech Rosies in World War II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Many of us are familiar with the female blue-collar workers that took jobs in factories during World War II. It turns out, however, that women were also employed as mathematicians and computers (that&#8217;s &#8220;compute-ers&#8221;). In this photo, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Pioneer-Programmer-Jennings-Computer-Changed-ebook\/dp\/B00GK7UZL6\/ref=tmm_kin_title_0\" target=\"_blank\">Jean Jennings Bartik<\/a> and Frances Bilas Spence get ready to present an early computer to military officials in 1946:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2011\/02\/17.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33200\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2011\/02\/17.jpg\" width=\"464\" height=\"262\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2011\/02\/17.jpg 644w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2011\/02\/17-500x282.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 464px) 100vw, 464px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Women operating a &#8220;differential analyzer,&#8221; often checking the machine&#8217;s work by doing the math by hand:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2011\/02\/26.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-1\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33199\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2011\/02\/26.jpg\" width=\"464\" height=\"262\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2011\/02\/26.jpg 640w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2011\/02\/26-500x282.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 464px) 100vw, 464px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Jean Jennings Bartik in 1946 with an early computer and Arthur Burks:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2011\/02\/33.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-2\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33198\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2011\/02\/33.jpg\" width=\"464\" height=\"262\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Their work was top-secret and so they weren&#8217;t part of the &#8220;Rosie the Riveter&#8221;-style propaganda at the time. Post-World War II disinterest in women&#8217;s accomplishments allowed their stories to remain untold.<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.topsecretrosies.com\/Top_Secret_Rosies\/Home.html\" target=\"_blank\">new documentary<\/a>, forwarded to us by Jordan G. and Dmitriy T.M., reveals these high-tech Rosies:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/18327205\" height=\"338\" width=\"500\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boingboing.net\/2011\/02\/09\/women-computers-of-w.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed:+boingboing\/iBag+(Boing+Boing)\" target=\"_blank\">BoingBoing<\/a>, photos from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2011\/TECH\/innovation\/02\/08\/women.rosies.math\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">CNN<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>See also our post on <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/01\/04\/myth-making-and-the-we-can-do-it-poster\/\" target=\"_self\">the feminist mythology surrounding the iconic &#8220;Rosie the Riveter&#8221; image<\/a>\u00a0(hint: it was about class, not gender). \u00a0And you can buy Jean Jennings Bartik book, <em>Pioneer Programmer<\/em>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Pioneer-Programmer-Jennings-Computer-Changed-ebook\/dp\/B00GK7UZL6\/ref=tmm_kin_title_0\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/\">Lisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/American-Hookup-New-Culture-Campus\/dp\/039328509X?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">American Hookup<\/a><em>, a book about college sexual culture; a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Gender-Interactions-Institutions-Lisa-Wade\/dp\/0393931072?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/intro\/\">Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a><em>.\u00a0You can follow her on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lisawade\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lisawadephd\/\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many of us are familiar with the female blue-collar workers that took jobs in factories during World War II. It turns out, however, that women were also employed as mathematicians and computers (that&#8217;s &#8220;compute-ers&#8221;). In this photo, Jean Jennings Bartik and Frances Bilas Spence get ready to present an early computer to military officials in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55,2102,2100,253,290,309,76],"class_list":["post-33193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gender","tag-gender-history","tag-gender-work","tag-history","tag-sciencetechnology","tag-warmilitary","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33193"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61585,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33193\/revisions\/61585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}