Trivia
HardThe First Female Computer Programmers Were Called What?
Answer: Rosies
During World War II, tens of thousands of women took on traditionally male roles while the men who previously filled them were deployed or otherwise engaged in the war effort. At the time computers were essentially people with computational skills that were employed to complete long and complex calculations. The US Military hired hundreds of women to perform calculations for artillery tables and fulfill other military calculation needs. Like the women who had taken on traditional male jobs in other industries, the military’s human computers were known as “Rosies”.
When the process of calculation shifted from manual paper-based calculations to machines with the advent of early military computer projects, many of the women went right along with the shift. Although history has put the spotlight on the men involved in the creation of early computers, there were dozens of women right along with them debugging the room-sized machines, running code, training new programmers, and otherwise working at the forefront of the computer age.
After the war effort spooled down and men started returning and settling back into their regular lives, the majority of the programming “Rosies” were phased out and almost entirely forgotten about. In the mid-1980s a Harvard student, Kathryn Kleiman, uncovered evidence of the women while conducting research for a paper focused on women in computing. She was surprised that very few people had any knowledge of the women who served as human computers and early programmers of machines like the ENIAC and was one of the first to champion for public recognition of their contributions.
Roughly twenty years later, through the work of filmmaker LeAnn Erickson, even more attention was focused on the history of the “Rosies”. While conducting interviews for a documentary Erickson ran into several women who talked about their past lives as government computers and programmers–something Erickson was shocked to realize she’d never heard a thing about. This in turn led Erickson to begin researching the history of the code “Rosies” and culminated in the release of the documentary Top Secret Rosies: The Female Computers of World War II.
Trivia
Very HardThe Sci-Fi Term “Metahuman” Was Coined By?
Trivia
HardThere Is No Nobel Prize Offered For?
Trivia
EasyIn Medieval Europe, Which Of The Following Were Used As Timers?
Trivia
HardWork On Which Of These Sci-Fi Movies Actually Led To Real World Scientific Papers?
Trivia
EasyThe Giant’s Causeway Is One Of The Best Known Examples Of This Geological Phenomenon?
Trivia
EasyWhat Did The First Webcam Monitor?
Trivia
HardThe Bird Of Prey With The Largest Natural Geographic Range Is The?
Trivia
EasyWhat Food, When Properly Sealed, Keeps Forever?
Trivia
HardWhich Google Product Includes A Nod To Sci-Fi Classic The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy?