First Computer Programmers Inspire Documentary

"The documentary isn't just about the history," said executive producer and ENIAC Programmers historian Kathy Kleiman, an Internet lawyer from Northern Virginia, who is fundraising for the project, "but how these programmers provided role models to really inspire women to believe that computer careers were within their reach."

Susan Hadary, a Maryland documentary producer, will help Kleiman produce a multimedia film that explains not only how ENIAC worked, but to give long-awaited recognition to the ENIAC women.

Kleiman, a former Wall Street programmer, has spent years recording their oral histories. Three of the women -- all in their 80s -- are still alive.

"There were few women in my college classes," said Kleiman. "Few people had exposure before college and they didn't think they could do it. I saw a block that began to trouble me."

As student at Harvard University in 1985, Kleiman began research for a history paper on women in computing. "I didn't think I'd hit the 40-page word limit," she said. "I found nothing."

While reading a biography of an Army captain who found funding for ENIAC, Kleiman discovered a 1940s photo of women at a 9-foot tall computer. A computer historian told her those were "just refrigerator ladies" who had been posed in front of the machine "to make it look good."

'Tracked Them Down'

"They looked knowledgeable to me, and I made it my job to track them down," said Kleiman.

In fact, working on ENIAC required physical stamina, mental creativity and patience. The machine was enormous, with an estimated 18,000 vacuum tubes and 40 black 8-foot cables. The programmers used 3,000 switches and dozens of cables and digit trays to physically route the data and program pulses.

Bartik tells how she had great male mentors, like science giants J. Presper Eckert, Richard Clippinger and John Mauchly. But in the in the second half of her career, while working in business, she experienced subtle discrimination.

"I would go to a meeting with men where I was usually the only woman, and I would make a suggestion, and no one would say anything," said Bartik. "If a man said something, they would jump all over him."