Dudley’s Female Computers

Dudley Observatory has spent most of its 160 years as a working science institution, and not a museum.  That means that its employees weren’t always focused on saving the kind of materials that a museum would preserve.  Of course, they saved the astronomical materials they were working with, but not always the bits and pieces…

Read More

What Happened to the Women Computers?

I’ve spoken about the Dudley Observatory’s corps of women computers several times now.  Every time, someone has come up to me afterwards to mention that, back in their day, there still were departments of women working low level mathematical jobs.  Without giving away anyone’s age, I can say this runs up until the seventies. This…

Read More

Recovering the History of Women Computers

As an archivist, I’m not used to covering topical issues.  But the history of women computers in the field of science is suddenly getting a lot of attention.  The latest is the film “Hidden Figures,” which follows four African American women and their careers as mathematicians in Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory’s computer pool.  It’s based on…

Read More