Human computers: the first pioneers of the information age

Before computers were machines, they were people. They were men and women, young and old, well educated and common. They were the workers who convinced scientists that large-scale calculation had value. Long before Presper Eckert and John Mauchly built the ENIAC at the Moore School of Electronics, Philadelphia, or Maurice Wilkes designed the EDSAC for Manchester University, human computers had created the discipline of computation. They developed numerical methodologies and proved them on practical problems. These human computers were not savants or calculating geniuses. Some knew little more than basic arithmetic. A few were near equals of the scientists they served and, in a different time or place, might have become practicing scientists had they not been barred from a scientific career by their class, education, gender or ethnicity.