Ruth Teitelbaum ( Lichterman; February 1, 1924 – August 9, 1986) was an American computer programmer and mathematician who was one of the first computer programmers in the world. Teitelbaum was one of the original programmers for the

ENIAC ENIAC (; Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first Computer programming, programmable, Electronics, electronic, general-purpose digital computer, completed in 1945. Other computers had some of these features, but ENIAC was ...

computer. The other five ENIAC programmers were

Jean Bartik Jean Bartik ( Betty Jean Jennings; December 27, 1924 – March 23, 2011) was an American computer programmer who was one of the original six programmers of the ENIAC computer. Bartik studied mathematics in school then began work at the Unive ...

, Betty Holberton,

Kathleen Antonelli Kathleen Rita Antonelli ( McNulty; formerly Mauchly; 12 February 1921 – 20 April 2006), known as Kay McNulty, was an Irish computer programmer and one of the six original programmers of the ENIAC, one of the first general-purpose electronic ...

, Marlyn Meltzer, and

Frances Spence Frances V. Spence ( Bilas; March 2, 1922 – July 18, 2012) was an American physicist and computer scientist. She was one of the original programmers for the ENIAC (the first electronic digital computer). She is considered one of the first comput ...

Early life and education

Teitelbaum was born Ruth Lichterman in

The Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

, New York, on February 1, 1924. She was the elder of two children, and the only daughter, of Sarah and Simon Lichterman, a teacher. Her parents were

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

ish immigrants from Russia. She graduated from

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...

with a B.Sc. in Mathematics.

Career

Teitelbaum was hired by the

Moore School of Electrical Engineering The Moore School of Electrical Engineering was a school at the University of Pennsylvania. The school was integrated into the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science. The Moore School came into existence as a resul ...

at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

to compute

ballistics Ballistics is the field of mechanics concerned with the launching, flight behaviour and impact effects of projectiles, especially weapon munitions such as bullets, unguided bombs, rockets and the like; the science or art of designing and acceler ...

trajectories. The Moore School was funded by the US Army during the Second World War. Here a group of about 80 women worked manually calculating ballistic trajectories - complex differential calculations. In June 1943, the Army decided to fund an experimental project - the first all-electronic digital computer called the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (

). The computer was a huge machine with 40 black 8-foot panels. The programmers had to physically program it using 3000 switches, and telephone switching cords in a dozen trays, to route the data, and the program, through the machine. This is the reason why these women were called "computers". Along with Marlyn Meltzer, Teitelbaum was part of a special area of the

project to calculate ballistic trajectory equations using analog technology. They taught themselves and others certain functions of the ENIAC and helped prepare the ballistics software. In 1946, the

computer was unveiled before the public and the press. The seven women were the only generation of programmers to program the

. After the war, Teitelbaum traveled with

to the Ballistics Research Laboratory at the

Aberdeen Proving Ground Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) is a U.S. Army facility located adjacent to Aberdeen, Harford County, Maryland, United States. More than 7,500 civilians and 5,000 military personnel work at APG. There are 11 major commands among the tenant units, ...

where she remained for two more years to train the next group of

programmers.

Legacy

In 2010, a documentary called, "'' Top Secret Rosies: The Female "Computers" of WWII''" was released. The film centered around in-depth interviews of three of the six women programmers, focusing on the commendable patriotic contributions they made during World War II.The ENIAC team is the inspiration behind the award-winning 2013 documentary ''The Computers''. This documentary, created by Kathy Kleiman and the ENIAC Programmers Project, combines actual footage of the ENIAC team from the 1940s with interviews with the female team members as they reflect on their time working together on the ENIAC. It is the first documentary of a series of three, and parts two and three will be entitled ''The Coders'' and ''The Future-Maker'', respectively.

Personal life

She married Adolph Teitelbaum. Marriage licence was issued on September 17, 1948.

Death

Ruth Teitelbaum died in 1986, aged 62, in

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

References

External links

The Women of ENIAC
{{DEFAULTSORT:Teitelbaum, Ruth 1986 deaths Hunter College alumni University of Pennsylvania staff 1924 births 20th-century American Jews American women computer scientists American computer scientists Human computers 20th-century American women Jewish women scientists