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I went to go see this exhibit https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2024/03/30/world-war-ii-museum-ai-veterans-survivors/?itid=sr_1_5dc425a1-5141-402c-bbfb-7a7e0a88ab25 I watched people interacting with the videos. I have to admit, there was a powerful intensity about their engagement. And that bears thinking about. #ai #histodons
#ai #histodons

"The Computer Girls", published in Cosmopolitan magazine in April 1967 was originally brought back to public attention during @nensmeng's research for his book "The Computer Boys Take Over". For years only the first page was available online. Now the full article has emerged: https://archive.org/details/the-computer-girls-cosmopolitan-magazine-april-1967

http://thecomputerboys.com/

#Histodons #computer #history #SocialHistory #HistoryOfComputing

The Computer Girls... States already, and the computer industry is growing fast, there'll soon be another twenty thousand. (But don’t get the idea that programming is an all-female field. For every computer girl, there are eight computer men.) Every company that makes or uses computers hires women to program them. If a girl is qualified, she’s got the job. There’s no sex discrimination in hiring. The girl with a college degree in math, physics or engineering can start off her computing career — as a trainee — at eight thousand dollars a year. Depending on her ability and ambition, she can work her way up the “computer ladder” to be a senior systems analyst at twenty thousand dollars a year or more. (Just look at the Sunday want ads for an idea of the pay scale.) But the field isn’t closed to the girl with a general education — or to the girl with no college training. Women are found at all levels of work involving computers — from key punching the machine cards to systems analysis (a highly skilled job that requires full knowledge of how computers can solve any given problem). Most computer girls “program.” They design the solutions to specific problems and write the step-by-step instructions that tell the computers what to do. Let’s meet a few. Sally Brown, for one, is a redhead from South Bend, Indiana, who was a stenographer for a Chicago insurance company. When the insurance company put its data on computers, Sally was trained by the computer company to write her...
The Computer Girls are also private data-processing schools that charge up to five hundred dollars for a six- to twelve-week course. “These private schools vary in quality,” says Stuart Longworth, Univac’s manager of employee services. “People invest their time and money in these quickie courses and expect to get a high-paying job in programming when they're through. But they haven’t learned that much. You need on-the-job experience. Programming is something you have to work with.” Although they do hire a number of already-trained programmers, each of the computer manufacturers trains its own people as well as the programmers who work for its customers. The training is on an earn-as-you-learn basis. “I’d never consider paying for my own training when I can get someone else to pay for it,” says a girl who’s learning to use Honeywell equipment. Yet some people prefer to take an introductory course in programming before applying for a job — just to make sure they'll like the work. What about the chances of meeting men in computer work? The field is overrun with males. According to figures from the data-processing journals and the Data Processing Management Association there are some twenty thousand computer girls and one hundred sixty thousand computer men! Why so few women in the industry? “How many women have heard about it?” asks James M. Adams, Jr., director of education for the Association for Computing Machinery. “Many of the programming jobs require a math...
The Computer Girls by Lios Mandel A trainee gets $8,000 a year ...a girl "senior systems analyst" gets $20,000 — and up! Maybe it’s time to investigate.... Ann Richardson, IBM systems engineer, designs a bridge via computer. Above (left) she checks her facts with fellow systems engineer, Marvin V. Fuchs. Right, she feeds facts into the computer. Below, Ann demonstrates on a viewing screen how her facts designed the bridge, and makes changes with a "light pen." Photos by Henry Grossman. Dress by Gino Charles Twenty years ago, a girl could be a secretary, a school teacher ...maybe a librarian, a social worker or a nurse. If she was really ambitious, she could go into the professions and compete with men usually working harder and longer to earn less pay for the same job. Now have come the big, dazzling computers — and a whole new kind of work for women: programming. Telling the miracle machines what to do and how to do it. Anything from predicting the weather to sending out billing notices from the local department store. And if it doesn’t sound like woman’s work — well, it just is. (“I had this idea I’d be standing at a big machine and pressing buttons all day long,” says a girl who programs for a Los Angeles bank. I couldn’t have been further off the track. I figure out how the computer can solve a problem, and then instruct the machine to do it.” “It’s just like planning a dinner,” explains Dr. Grace Hopper, now a staff scientist in systems programming for Univac.

The Computer Girls Cosmopolitan Magazine (April 1967) : Lois Mandel, Henry Grossman : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The complete Cosmopolitan article, originally rediscovered by Nathan Ensmenger.
Internet Archive
#History #computer #histodons #socialhistory #historyofcomputing

This is just a reminder that, in 1631, Robert Barker in London misprinted a famous line of the Holy Bible, namely „Thou shalt commit adultery“.

The forbidden copies with the famous slip sold well, and a few survived in our catalogues. The edition was called the Wicked Bible afterwards. #bookhistory #histodons #history #bible

#History #histodons #bible #bookhistory

#OnThisDay, 16 Apr 1912, Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly a plane across the English Channel.

Quimby was the first American woman to receive a pilot’s licence and made her living doing exhibition flights in the US. She also made money as the advertising face of a grape juice. She died in July 1912 when her plane pitched forward at 1,000 feet and she was thrown out.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #AviationHistory #AmericanHistory #Histodons

#History #OnThisDay #otd #histodons #americanhistory #womeninhistory #aviationhistory

One fact you might not know about #JackieRobinson: he was a Republican. Millions of Blacks were also Republicans at the time. Robinson even endorsed Nixon in the election of 1960. But by 1968, Robinson was done with the GOP.
https://theconversation.com/jackie-robinson-was-a-republican-until-the-gop-became-the-white-mans-party-181014
#JackieRobinsonDay #Baseball #History #Histodons @histodons #BlackMastodon

Jackie Robinson was a Republican until the GOP became the ‘white man’s party’

Like millions of other Blacks during the first half of the 20th Century, legendary baseball player Jackie Robinson was a republican. That changed when the GOP opposed voting rights for Blacks.
The Conversation
#History #histodons #blackmastodon #baseball #jackierobinsonday #jackierobinson @histodons group

#OnThisDay, 15 Apr 1960, Ella Baker convenes a conference of 126 independent student protest groups. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) forms as a result. SNCC coordinated and assisted direct-action challenges to segregation in the USA.

Baker was a civil rights activist for five decades, and advocated grassroots activism. She also criticised the misogyny she encountered within the movement.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #AmericanHistory #Histodons

#History #OnThisDay #otd #histodons #americanhistory #womeninhistory

"I don’t wear men’s clothes, I wear my own."

#OnThisDay, 10 Apr 1864, army surgeon Dr Mary Edwards Walker is captured by the Confederates during the US Civil War. She later receives the Medal of Honor.

As well as serving in the Civil War, and being a dress reformer who preferred to wear trousers, she was also a suffragist who declined to take her husband’s name when they married.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #AmericanHistory #Histodons

Dr Mary Edwards Walker in later life. She is wearing a wing collar shirt with a cravat, a heavy overcoat and a top hat. She is a white woman with white hair.
Dr Mary Edwards Walker with her medal. She is a white woman with dark hair. She's wearing a dress and looking miserable about it.
Dr Mary Edwards Walker in later life. She is wearing a trouser suit, overcoat and scarf, and carrying a top hat. She is a white woman with white hair.
#History #OnThisDay #otd #histodons #americanhistory #womeninhistory

Today is the 159th anniversary of Ulysses Grant's defeat of the US secessionist slavery movement's paramilitary arm. Please celebrate accordingly. #History #CivilWar #Histodons
#History #histodons #civilwar

#OnThisDay, 8 Apr 1959, Mary K Hawes initiates a project to create the first universal programming language for computers used by businesses and government. Grace Hopper led the team that then created COBOL. Some mainframes are still using it.

#WomenInHistory #History #WomenInSTEM #Histodons

Grace Hopper at the controls of a computer, surrounded by white men in ties. She is a white woman with light hair.
Grace Hopper with a bank of mainframes and the COBOL manual. She is a white woman with light hair.
#History #OnThisDay #histodons #womeninstem #womeninhistory

#OnThisDay, 7 Apr 1141, Matilda is legally recognised as ruler of England in her own right. Her coronation never happens.

She was appointed heir by her father Henry I, then usurped by her cousin Stephen after Henry’s death. The civil war between the cousins is known as the Anarchy and lasted from 1138 to 1153.

#WomenInHistory #History #OTD
#EnglishHistory #AnarchyInTheUK #Histodons

#History #OnThisDay #otd #histodons #womeninhistory #anarchyintheuk #EnglishHistory

Very early #OnThisDay, 6 Apr 1944, Lillian Rolfe and Violette Szabo separately arrive in occupied France to work for the British Special Operations Executive (SEO). Rolfe is a wireless operator, Szabo a courier.

Szabo returns to the UK at the end of April but goes back to France in June 1944 and is captured. Rolfe is captured in July 1944.

They are executed together, by shooting, in Ravensbrück concentration camp in Feb 1945.

#WomenInHistory #WorldWar2 #History #Histodons #EuropeanHistory

photo of Lillian Rolfe. She is a white woman with dark hair
photo of Violette Szabo. She is a white woman with darkish hair
#History #OnThisDay #histodons #WorldWar2 #womeninhistory #EuropeanHistory

Why is a bridge in Sarajevo named after two women?

#OnThisDay, 5 Apr 1992, Suada Dilberović, a Muslim, and Olga Sučić, a Catholic, are killed whilst protesting for peace in Sarajevo during the outbreak of the Bosnian war. They are the first civilian casualties in what became the Siege of Sarajevo. The siege lasted 1,425 days, and over 5,000 civilians were killed during it.

The bridge they died on has been renamed in their memory.

#WomenInHistory #EuropeanHistory #OTD #History #Histodons

#History #OnThisDay #otd #histodons #womeninhistory #EuropeanHistory

It’s unlikely that Trump will wind up in an orange jumpsuit, and most likely not before election day, in any case.

But if he does, he would not be the first candidate to run for the White House from the Big House.

Here’s the story of Eugene V. Debs, a Socialist Party presidential candidate in 1920, who polled nearly a million votes without ever hitting the campaign trail:
https://theconversation.com/trump-wouldnt-be-the-first-presidential-candidate-to-campaign-from-a-prison-cell-225492
#election2024 #uspolitics #History #Histodons @histodons


Trump wouldn’t be the first presidential candidate to campaign from a prison cell

Can you run for president from a prison cell? One man did in the 1920 election and got almost a million votes.
The Conversation
#History #histodons #uspolitics #election2024 @histodons group

“The problem is not a general lack of historical knowledge but its disparity along racial lines. Black students do know this history, or at least more of it than their white peers.”

https://theconversation.com/the-black-history-knowledge-gap-is-widening-and-gop-politicians-are-making-it-worse-223605
#BlackHistory #BlackMastodon @blackmastodon #History #Histodons #USPolitics


The Black history knowledge gap is widening – and GOP politicians are making it worse

Unlike some GOP politicians, a college professor who teaches Black history to mostly white students was excited that the Black national anthem was being played at the Super Bowl.
The Conversation
#History #histodons #blackmastodon #blackhistory #uspolitics @blackmastodon group

#OnThisDay, 3 Apr 1979, Jane Byrne wins the Chicago mayoral election. She is the first woman to be mayor of the city and is sworn in on 16 April. She hires the first black woman to be a school superintendent in the city, and stops the police raiding gay bars.

Lori Lightfoot was the second woman to hold the post, from 2019 to 2023. She’s the first black woman and the first LGBT+ mayor since the post was created in 1837.

#WomenInHistory #History #OTD #AmericanHistory #Histodons

#History #OnThisDay #otd #histodons #americanhistory #womeninhistory

#OnThisDay, 3 Apr 1913, suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst is sentenced to three years' penal servitude, and announces she will go on hunger strike.

#WomenInHistory #History #OTD #BritishHistory #VotesForWomen #Histodons

#History #OnThisDay #otd #histodons #votesforwomen #womeninhistory #BritishHistory

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