This podcast from National Public Radio’s Planet Money explains how women were early programmers and why their numbers dropped off as the digital age progressed. The podcast was originally broadcast in 2014, but I just discovered it when it was rebroadcast. Also, check out the graph that goes with the program.
Women in programming and computer science are ongoing topics of interest on this blog.
If you want to learn more about the role of women in early programming, check out Nathan L. Ensmenger’s book, The Computer Boys Take Over.
This book is chock full of information about the people who laid firm foundations for the digital age, including quite a few female programmers. Professor Ensmenger, who teaches at Indiana University, also includes some interesting images in the book, including a recruiting advertisement for female programmers from Cosmopolitan Magazine. The Cosmo ad is so good that I’ve shared it with my students numerous times.
I’ve written some posts about the women mathematicians and programmers during World War II and afterward. Some of the women I’ve written about are in Professor Ensmenger’s book.
Check out my post about women and computing:
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