Glenn A. Beck (background) and Betty Snyder (foreground) program ENIAC in BRL building 328
Photographer: U.S. Army photo
Date: c. 1946
Location: Moore School of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
This U.S. Army photograph shows women programming ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. ENIAC, completed in 1945 and publicly unveiled on February 14, 1946, was one of the earliest general-purpose electronic digital computers. The six women who programmed ENIAC — Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli, Jean Jennings Bartik, Frances Elizabeth 'Betty' Holberton, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Frances Bilas Spence, and Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum — were trained mathematicians who developed programming methods for a machine that had no instruction manual. They were known collectively as the 'ENIAC Six.' For decades, their contributions were largely uncredited and their identities unknown in many photographs. Kathy Kleiman's research and the resulting 2014 documentary 'Top Secret Rosies' brought wider recognition to their pioneering role in the history of computing.
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