Fifty Years of Women in Computing

University Of Maryland, College Park, College Park MD

Investigators

Abstract

SES 00-80777 - Janet Abbate (University of Maryland, College Park) "Fifty Years of Women in Computing" This award supports a project designed to document the contributions and experiences of American and British women who were active in computing between 1940 and 1990. The project includes travel to conduct interviews with 70 to 90 women who were employed in computer science departments, the software industry, or business computing during this period. The award also supports archival research at several locations in the United States and United Kingdom. This research will provide the basis for a scholarly book that analyzes how notions of gender shaped both women's opportunities in the computing professions and the practice of computer science and programming. In addition, the project will create a valuable collection of oral histories that will be made available to researchers at an established archive. This study will give historians, science studies and women's studies scholars, and the general public an increased understanding of the role of gender in shaping science and technology. By publicizing women's past achievements in computing, the study will also encourage women to enter an area of science in which they have been underrepresented.