Evidence

Format Web Page

"ENIAC’s original six programmers were Kathleen McNulty, Jean Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Wescoff, Frances Bilas, and Ruth Lichterman – all women."

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Location PART 2 - FOUR HIDDEN CHIMNEYS CHAPTER 6: SCAFFOLDING FOR INFLUENCE Post-Industrial Craft

Source title ENIAC Programmers Project

Source authors ENIAC Programmers Project

Source year 2026

Confidence high

Importance high

Format Web Page

"Historical accounts describe ENIAC programming as initially perceived as routine or menial work, which may have contributed to assigning the task to women."

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Location PART 2 - FOUR HIDDEN CHIMNEYS CHAPTER 6: SCAFFOLDING FOR INFLUENCE Post-Industrial Craft

Source title How Women Changed the World of Computing: 'The Innovators' by Isaacson

Source authors Walter Isaacson

Source year 2014

Confidence high

Importance high

Format Web Page

"At Raytheon in the mid-1950s, Elsie Shutt recalled Richard Clippinger’s programming department as about half men and half women."

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Location PART 2 - FOUR HIDDEN CHIMNEYS CHAPTER 6: SCAFFOLDING FOR INFLUENCE Post-Industrial Craft

Source title Oral-History:Elsie Shutt

Source authors Elsie Shutt; Janet Abbate

Source year 2001

Confidence high

Importance high

Format Web Page

"Elsie Shutt learned programming during three summer jobs at Aberdeen Proving Ground while she was a graduate student."

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Location PART 2 - FOUR HIDDEN CHIMNEYS CHAPTER 6: SCAFFOLDING FOR INFLUENCE Post-Industrial Craft

Source title Oral-History:Elsie Shutt

Source authors Elsie Shutt; Janet Abbate

Source year 2001

Confidence high

Importance mid

Format Web Page

"A 1966 study of 366 U.S. government civil-service programmers found that 28 percent were women."

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Location PART 2 - FOUR HIDDEN CHIMNEYS CHAPTER 6: SCAFFOLDING FOR INFLUENCE Post-Industrial Craft

Source title What percentage of programmers were women?

Source authors Nathan Ensmenger

Source year 2023

Confidence high

Importance high

Format Web Page

"Microsoft’s historical strategy largely left mainstream PC manufacturing to hardware partners, while Bill Gates argued in 1992 that software was where the profit was."

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Location PART 2 - FOUR HIDDEN CHIMNEYS CHAPTER 6: SCAFFOLDING FOR INFLUENCE Hardware Software Polarity

Source title 107. Click In With Surface

Source authors Steven Sinofsky

Source year 2022

Confidence high

Importance high

Format Book / Offline paper

"Women were significant participants in early computing, and postwar programming was often treated as women’s work in contrast with the more masculine status associated with building computers."

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Location PART 2 - FOUR HIDDEN CHIMNEYS CHAPTER 6: SCAFFOLDING FOR INFLUENCE Hardware Software Polarity

Source title Recoding Gender: Women's Changing Participation in Computing

Source authors Janet Abbate

Source year 2012

Confidence high

Importance high

Format Online paper / PDF

"During the 1950s programming shifted from machine-specific numerical codes toward machine-independent programming languages."

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Location PART 2 - FOUR HIDDEN CHIMNEYS CHAPTER 6: SCAFFOLDING FOR INFLUENCE Hardware Software Polarity

Source title When Technology Became Language: The Origins of the Linguistic Conception of Computer Programming, 1950-1960

Source authors David Nofre; Mark Priestley; Gerard Alberts

Source year 2014

Confidence high

Importance mid

Format Book / Offline paper

"Computer programming began as low-status clerical work, often performed by women, and became a highly paid technical occupation by the late 1950s and early 1960s."

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Location PART 2 - FOUR HIDDEN CHIMNEYS CHAPTER 6: SCAFFOLDING FOR INFLUENCE Hardware Software Polarity

Source title The Black Art of Programming

Source authors Nathan L. Ensmenger

Source year 2010

Confidence high

Importance high

Format Web Page

"Steven Pemberton co-designed ABC, a forerunner of Python."

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Location PART 2 - FOUR HIDDEN CHIMNEYS CHAPTER 6: SCAFFOLDING FOR INFLUENCE Hardware Software Polarity

Source title Steven Pemberton

Source authors Steven Pemberton

Source year 2026

Confidence high

Importance mid