Jean Bartik

Jean Bartik
Born	Betty Jean Jennings (1924-12-27)December 27, 1924 Gentry County, Missouri
Died
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Northwest Missouri State Teachers College (honorary D. Sc., 2002), University of Pennsylvania (B.S., 1945; GED 1967)
Spouse(s)	William Bartik
Awards	Computer Pioneer Award (2008)
Engineering career
Employer(s)	University of Pennsylvania, Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation, Auerbach Publishers, Data Decisions
Significant projects	ENIAC
Significant awards	WITI Hall of Fame Computer History Museum Fellow (2008)

Jean Bartik (December 27, 1924 – March 23, 2011) was one of the original programmers for the ENIAC computer.

Early life and education

She was born Betty Jean Jennings in Gentry County, Missouri, in 1924. She attended Northwest Missouri State Teachers College, majoring in mathematics and graduating in 1945. Jennings graduated as the only math major from her college. Jenning's father, William Smith Jennings (1893-1971) was from Alanthus Grove, where he was a schoolteacher as well as a farmer. At the young age of seventeen, William began his teaching career. In this same year, he also completed his own education in school. Jenning's mother, Lula May Spainhower (1887-1988) was from Alanthus. Her parents married on February 21, 1914 in Alanthus Grove. "Jennings had three older brothers: William Smith Jennings, born 10 January 1915; Robert Newton Jennings, born 15 March 1918; and Raymond D Jennings, born 23 January 1922. She also had two older sisters, Emma Estella Jennings, born 11 August 1916, Lulu May Jennings, born 22 August 1919, and one younger sister, Mable Kathleen."

Career as a computer programmer

Programmers Betty Jean Jennings (left) and Fran Bilas (right) operate the ENIAC's main control panel.

In 1945, the Army was recruiting math majors for the war effort; despite the warning of her adviser that she would be just "a cog in a wheel" Bartik decided to apply for the position. She applied and was successful. She was hired by the University of Pennsylvania to work for Army Ordnance at Aberdeen Proving Ground to calculate ballistics trajectories by hand as a human "computer." While working there, Bartik met her husband, William Bartik, who was an engineer working on a Pentagon project at the University of Pennsylvania. They married in 1946 and divorced in 1968.

When the Electronic Numeric Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) was developed for the purpose of calculating these same trajectories, Bartik applied to become a part of the project and was eventually selected to be one of its first programmers. Bartik and the other five original programmers became extremely adept at running the ENIAC, after learning how the machine worked only by reviewing diagrams of the device and by talking to its engineers: there was no manual. Initially, they were not allowed to see the ENIAC at all since it was still classified and their clearance hadn't gone through, so they had to learn how to program the machine solely through schematic diagrams.

Bartik described the first public demonstration of the ENIAC: The day ENIAC was introduced to the world was one of the most exciting days of my life. The demonstration was fabulous. ENIAC calculated the trajectory faster than it took the bullet to travel. We handed out copies of the calculations as they were run. ENIAC was 1,000 times faster than any machine that existed prior to that time. With its flashing lights, it also was an impressive machine illustrating graphically how fast it was actually computing.

Her work at University of Pennsylvania and the ENIAC was documented in the film Top Secret Rosies: The Female "Computers" of WWII. Bartik later became part of a group charged with converting the ENIAC into a stored program computer: in the original implementation, ENIAC was programmed by setting dials and changing cable connections.After the end of the war, she went on to work with the ENIAC designers John Eckert and John Mauchly, and helped them develop the BINAC and UNIVAC I computers. Recalling her time working with Eckert and Mauchly, she described their close group of computer engineers as a "technical Camelot." In 1951, the same year the UNIVAC was introduced, Bartik left the industry to raise her three children.

Bartik was a friend of over 60 years with John Mauchly's widow, Kathleen "Kay" Antonelli. He walked Jean down the aisle when she married and it was at Jean's wedding reception that he had the courage to approach Kay about dating. Kay was also one of the six original women programmers of the ENIAC.

Later life

In 1967, Bartik returned to the working world and became an editor for Auerbach Publishers, an early publisher of information on high technology. She left Auerbach to join Data Decisions, a competitor to Datapro Research (now part of the Gartner Group) and Auerbach. Data Decisions was founded in 1980 by Elizabeth McKeown Sussman (formerly of Datapro) and Sandra Eisenberg, also of Datapro. Data Decisions was funded by Ziff-Davis Publishing in 1980. Jean joined Data Decisions in 1981 where she was a Senior Editor for the Communications Services research publication. Data Decisions was acquired by McGraw-Hill (then owners of Datapro) in 1985 and promptly shut down. Having lost her job at the age of 61, Bartik was unable to find any more work in the computer industry and instead began a new career as a real estate agent, which she remained in for most of the rest of her life. She died from congestive heart failure on March 23, 2011.

Awards and honors

In 1997, Bartik was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame, along with the other original ENIAC programmers.

In 2008, she was made a Fellow of the Computer History Museum "for contributions as one of the first programmers of the groundbreaking ENIAC computing system in 1945, and for further assistance in converting the ENIAC system into one of the first stored-program computers." That same year, she also received the IEEE Computer Pioneer Award from the IEEE Computer Society, for "pioneering work as one of the first programmers, including co-leading the first teams of ENIAC programmers, and pioneering work on BINAC and UNIVAC I." She also received the Korenman Award from the Multinational Center for Development of Women in Technology (MDWIT).

Bartik has a museum in her name at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. The museum boasts rare one-of-a-kind ENIAC, BINAC and UNIVAC exhibits, including an original salesman pot-metal model of the UNIVAC I.

In addition to a BS in mathematics from Northwest Missouri State Teachers College, Bartik held an MS in English from the University of Pennsylvania and an honorary Doctor. of Science from Northwest Missouri State University.

The Drupal default theme Bartik is named after Jean Bartik.

See also

• Adele Goldstine
• Betty Holberton
• Frances Spence
• Ruth Teitelbaum
• Marlyn Wescoff
• Kathleen McNulty

References

http://web.b.ebscohost.com.lib-proxy.fullerton.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=ccbae0ae-0b05-4457-b083-e5331356259f%40sessionmgr110&vid=1&hid=123

External links

External video
Jean Bartik and the ENIAC Women, "Computer History Museum", November 10, 2010
Jean Jennings Bartik - ENIAC Pioneer, Computer History Museum, October 22, 2008

• The Untold Story of the ENIAC Programmers
• UNIVAC conference, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. 171-page transcript of oral history with computer pioneers, including Jean Bartik, involved with the Univac computer, held on 17–18 May 1990. The meeting involved 25 engineers, programmers, marketing representatives, and salesmen who were involved with the UNIVAC, as well as representatives from users such as General Electric, Arthur Andersen, and the U.S. Census.
• Female Frontiers (NASA)
• WITI Hall of Fame
• Jean JENNINGS Bartik Computing Museum at NWMSU
• Jean Bartik: the untold story of a remarkable ENIAC programmer