Before the Internet: Refrigerator Ladies and The ENIAC Programmers Project

In the early days of commercial programming, things weren’t as cozy as today.

Computers occupied entire warehouse rooms, ran on tubes and flip switches and programs were ‘fed’ manually.

ENIAC, unveiled to the public on February 14, 1946, became a legendary machine ran by male engineers. ENIAC was the first electronic general purpose computer.

Where were all the women at?

A team of female contributors to the ENIAC project were busy working on the machine, effectively programming its every state – all while remaining away from the spotlight and into obscurity.

eniac

Female programmers of the ENIAC.

They often appeared posing for photographs in front of the machine, and they gained the nickname “Refrigerator Ladies” as a reference to the fridge ads of the era that featured females presenting the product in stores.

For decades, these early era female programmers were dismissed as mere visual add-ons to ENIAC’s fame, until Kathy Kleiman, a young programmer in the mid-80s discovered their existence and interviewed the ones still alive.

Unfortunately, all these pioneering ladies have now passed, and their story remains in interviews and documents put together by Kathy Kleiman, who is seeking donations to make a documentary titled, Refrigerator Ladies: The Untold Story of the ENIAC Programmers.

More information on the project here.

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This post is 100% true!

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