Top Secret Rosies: The Female Computers of World War II

In 1942, when computers were human and women were underestimated, a group of female mathematicians helped win a war and usher in the modern computer age. Sixty-five years later their story has finally been told.

The Computer History Museum welcomes filmmaker LeAnn Erickson during her year long screening tour of the documentary Top Secret Rosies: The Female Computers of WWII. Ms. Erickson will screen the film and conduct a Question/Answer session to follow.

This one hour documentary shares the little known story of a group of female mathematicians who did secret ballistics research for the US Army during WWII, a handful of whom went on to serve as the programmers of ENIAC, the first electronic computer. Jean Jennings Bartik, a Computer History Museum Fellow, appears in the film, along with other female 'human computers' and two veterans who used their ballistics work.