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Women/Machines

23/10/21

Jaquard LoomThe Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves. " Ada Lovelace notes, 1843

Ada Lovelace on her piano 1852 Lovelace, in her notes, demonstrated using diagrams ways for the engine to be used to make computations for practical and scientific purposes. Using her musical background she also surmised that, one day, such a machine could be used to compose music.Lovelace, in her notes, demonstrated using diagrams ways for the engine to be used to make computations for practical and scientific purposes. Using her musical background she also surmised that, one day, such a machine could be used to compose music.The Analytical engine 1834-1871

IBM punched cards , computer memory disk 1930's

ENIAC 1st électronic computer 1945, Entre 1944 et 1955, six femmes, Kathleen Antonelli, Jean Bartik, Betty Holberton, Marlyn Meltzer, Frances Spence et Ruth Teitelbaum sont les premières personnes à programmer l'ENIAC, pour un calcul balistique. Elles sont toutes mathématiciennes. Betty Holberton est en plus journaliste, ce qui lui permettait de voyager. Kathleen Antonelli et Frances Spence sont recrutées en 1942 par l’armée américaine pour calculer manuellement les trajectoires de tir. Marlyn Meltzer et Ruth Teitelbaum sont également calculatrices. Elles travaillent sur l'ENIAC à partir de 1944. Il s'agit d'identifier les différentes étapes du calcul et ensuite de câbler physiquement la machine. Ruth Teitelbaum, Frances Spence et Kathleen Antonelli poursuivirent leur travail sur l’Eniac lorsque celui-ci est transféré à Aberdeen en 19473.The "programmer" and "operator" job titles were not originally considered professions suitable for women. The labor shortage created by World War II helped enable the entry of women into the field

behind the computer's apparent intelligence to the general public was the arduous and ground-breaking programming work of a team of six women, who themselves had previously worked as “computers."

KnittersRope memory 'LOL computers' concvied by Margret Hamilton for Apollo guidance computer

Many of the women building the ropes were hired from the local textile industry for their sewing skills; other skilled women came from the Waltham Watch Company, a company that also helped with the high-precision gyroscopes used on the Apollo missions.Harvard Computers at work, circa 1890, including Henrietta Swan Leavitt seated, third from left, with magnifying glass (1868–1921), Annie Jump Cannon (1863–1941), Williamina Fleming standing, at center (1857–1911), and Antonia Maury (1866–1952).

The Harvard Computers was a team of women working as skilled workers to process astronomical data at the Harvard Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The team was directed by Edward Charles Pickering (1877 to 1919) and, following his death in 1919, by Annie Jump Cannon.

"The women were challenged to make sense of these patterns by devising a scheme for sorting the stars into categories. Annie Jump Cannon's success at this activity made her famous in her own lifetime, and she produced a stellar classification system that is still in use today. Antonia Maury discerned in the spectra a way to assess the relative sizes of stars, and Henrietta Leavitt showed how the cyclic changes of certain variable stars could serve as distance markers in space."

Other computers in the team included Williamina Fleming and Florence Cushman. Although these women started primarily as calculators, they made significant contributions to astronomy, much of which they published in research articles.

Textile sampler for girls to learn the solar system, V&A collection 1811.

Women playing the Barrel Organe with punched hole card systems

Daphne Orham "drawing" notes on her Oramics machinewhere she wanted to invent new means of musical expressions.The Oramics Machine is an electro-mechanical and opto-electronic musical interface conceived, co-designed and commissioned by Daphne Oram between 1962 and 1969. It used optical scanning technologies to read and interpret hand-drawn waveforms (timbres) and sequences of control information for musical pitch and dynamics. It can be seen as a forerunner of MIDI sequencing and the digital audio workstation (DAW).

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Delia Derbyshire at the BBC radiophonic workshop

Communicating Devices

Telegraph operator 1850'sTelegraph costume dress ,1884The famous medium, Mina Crandon, being tested by Harry Houdini for eventual fraud in her spirit seances 1923n 1891, E.I.Horsman introduced a new automatic writing device similar to the planchette, which the company called Daestu.Hare's "Spiritoscopes," the specimens incorporating the Pease Spiritual Telegraph Dial

The mediums of the mid 19th century used their their “sensitive body's” to act as a sort of telegraph machine which largely improved the communication and delivered clearer messages from the spirit, to the living world. These mediums designed different re-transcription systems with automatic handwriting, coded alphabets systems creating interactive tactile interfaces. Entrepreneurs wanted to sell spirit communication devices to the general population by developing these devices. They took the form of planchettas or Ouija boards. The most sophisticated device was probably the celestial telegraph commercialized by Pease in 1854.

Typewriter

Radio operator Kathleen ParkinCrystal radio adClara Rockmore 1930 Theremine masterTelephone operatorsTelephone operators

Bobbin Lace

The electronic computer was to replace the hundreds of human computers behind the ENIAC and make the calculating process faster and more efficient. THe women got promoted from "human computers" to "machine operators."The computer operators

Knitting robot

fr en
Ondoscope

Psychic Radio

Workshops Data Knitting