Person: Bartik, Betty Jean Jennings

Jean Bartik was an American mathematician famous as one of the original programmers for the ENIAC computer.

Jean began her education in a little one-room school, the Jennings School.
After graduating from Stanberry High School, Jean entered Northwest Missouri State Teachers College (now Northwest Missouri State University) in Maryville, Missouri.
In other courses such as Analytic Geometry, Trigonometry and Physics, the only students besides Jean were young men undergoing naval training.
At this stage Jean knew nothing about the ENIAC computer project but, led by John Mauchly and J Presper Eckert Jr, it had started in early 1943 under the direction of Herman Goldstine with consultant John von Neumann.
The idea was that Jean and the other four girls would operate the ENIAC but anyone wanting to use it to solve a problem would program it themselves.
Clippinger set up a group led by Jean at the University of Pennsylvania to work on this project.
Jean also regularly visited Aberdeen where she taught Clippinger to program the ENIAC.
Jean and William Bartik were divorced in 1968.
Jean Bartik received many awards for her remarkable contributions.
Bartik also received the Joan S Korenman Award in 2009 for her pioneering efforts as one of the first computer programmers.

Born 27 December 1924, Alanthus Grove, Gentry County, Missouri, USA. Died 23 March 2011, Poughkeepsie, New York, USA.

View full biography at MacTutor

Origin Usa, Women

Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0!

O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive