# data[].attributes.body
This is a PDF of the introduction to this exhibit for increased accessibility and readability.

# data[].attributes.body
This section features artifacts relating to the erasure of women's mental and physical labour in early computing history. This includes artifacts that physically situate women and their labour in computing in the 20th century, providing proof that their work existed despite historical erasure.

# data[].attributes.body
This section features artifacts relating to dietetics and its impact on women's mental and physical labour in the 20th century. These exhibits vary from original charts about nutrition, to updated versions that still pervade women's media, to examples of information technologies being used to acknowledge and reject the persistent gendered social expectations women must navigate.

# data[].attributes.body
This section features artifacts relating to eugenics and its impact on women's mental labour and bodies in the 20th century. Eugenics data was collected by women, who doubted the scientific validity, but their doubts were not valued (Bix, 1997). The data was used by governments to exploit other women, especially women of colour, and their bodies through forced sterilizations. These artifacts include new information technologies, examples of fieldwork, and examples of protest.

# data[].attributes.body
New “innovative” technologies are often sold as tools that will positively change society, as they increase efficiency and promote equality, but this is untrue (Week 2, Slide 10). New technologies are in practice very conservative, as they keep power with those who previously held it and maintain previous social orders instead of creating new ones (Week 2, Slide 10). The 19th century brought industrialization and new ways of gathering and using information and technologies, which influenced how women’s labour was seen in society. The mental labour, physical labour, and bodies of women have been exploited by governments and elites to advance new information technologies and promote narratives of progress.

The emergence of eugenics in the 20th century exploited not only women’s labour, but also their bodies. The study of eugenics sought to use genetic data to find which traits were hereditary, and in doing so control reproduction, so that “undesirable” genes like poverty and mental illness were eliminated (Week 5, Slide 42). Governments in the United States, Canada, and other countries pushed the narrative of progress that the use of eugenics, through data collection and reproduction control, would optimize societies’ productivity and intelligence (Week 5, Slide 14). Eugenics was based on the hereditary nature of peas, which is not relevant to human biology and does not factor in complex human relationships and socio-economic factors (Week 5, Slide 68). Women’s labour was used to gather this data by taking advantage of punch card tabulating technologies which were being developed to aid the counting of US census data (Week 5, Slide 24). There were also special family tree charts and cataloguing systems used to collect data (Week 5, Slides 52-54). The methods and reliability of this scientific exploration yielded data that was doubted by the women doing the fieldwork (Bix, 1997). Yet, their doubts and voices were not valued in this data collection process. For example, Amey (Eaton) Watson, questioned the information gathering method’s ability to reliably deduce hereditation of intellectual abilities within the confines of traditional scientific theory (Bix, 1997). She was unconvinced, writing, “I began to wonder if traits were inherited at all” (Bix, 1997, p. 647). Despite this, eugenics data was used to justify the forced sterilization of women, especially women of colour, without their consent and often without their knowledge (Week 5, Slide 61). In Canada, Indigenous people were disproportionately victims of forced sterilization, and this is further complicated by the difficulties in locating and accessing sterilization records (Leason & Ryan, 2019). The narrative that society could be become more efficient, paired with new information collection technologies, lead to the exploitation of women’s labour and the control and violation of their bodies. The biopolitical control of reproductive health continues today, in areas like legalization and access to abortion and access to birth control.

Alongside eugenics, women’s mental and physical labour was being exploited to advance the new science of food, called dietetics. Dietetics emerged in the 19th century and advanced in the 20th century, from the narrative that the increased efficiency of a population’s bodies would benefit societies’ efficiency overall (Week 5, Slide 70). This includes the emergence of the concept of food as energy, or calories, and the emergence that it was an individual's responsibility to themselves and society to maximize their calories within their own budget (Rebrovick, 2015). Research was done to create tools that would aid households in optimizing their diets through tables like The Economic Values of Foods (Smith, 1864). The chart was intended to be used as a guide, as it itemized foods, their prices, and their nutrient values (Smith, 1864). However, what goes unsaid is that this was passing the responsibility from the state onto the individual. This was a scenario where state ideologies of efficiency and food as energy were permeating into the way households were meant to be organized, putting the pressure largely on women who held these gendered roles in society. Dietetics as a women's job inside and outside the home would continue in the 20th century, with dietician careers being promoted to women (Oglesby, 1931). The idea of cooking being labour more than leisure for women is still relevant today. Szabo (2013) found that there are many distinct factors that lead to men to see cooking as “leisure” and lead women to see it as “work”, including that men often have fewer domestic responsibilities outside of the cooking itself.

Similarly to histories of the body, the history of computing often benefits from the erasure of women’s mental and physical labour. The first computers were humans, usually women doing skilled mental calculation (Hicks, 2017). During WWII, women were employed in skilled computational positions and helped work on calculations and machines like the ENIAC in the United States and the Colossus in the UK (Hicks, 2017). These efforts were valuable to military exploits such as codebreaking (Hicks, 2017). The narrative sold to women was that they were helping their countries and doing valuable work (Hicks, 2017). However, after the war, very few women stayed in computing roles (Hicks, 2017). Women were encouraged to go back to domestic work within the home or accept low-level undervalued office jobs (Hicks, 2017, pp. 22-23). The feminized computational labour that helped define early computing and the war effort was largely erased. For example, women’s labour was invaluable to the creation of the ENIAC computer, but there was little recognition for their efforts (Light, 1999). This devalues women's work in the wartime effort as simply a necessary replacement of male workers, where women “did their part” and then were expected to subvert back to dependent domestic societal roles. These histories and labour are dominated by white women. The emergence of the personal computer and programming in the 20th century brought narratives of opportunity for people of colour, but like we have seen with computing history, these new tech positions often maintained racist social inequalities and devalued the labour of people of colour (Gibbons, 2022).

The following exhibit is split into three sections, Eugenics, Dietetics and Computing. These sections contain artifacts from the 19th century to today that illustrate the ways in which women’s labour and bodies were exploited to advance narratives of progress surrounding new information technologies.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
"Hollerith Tabulator/Sorter, 1890" (IBM, n.d.)

# data[].attributes.body
The Hollerith Tabulator was a machine that used punchcards and electricity to count large amounts of data (IBM, n.d.). This new information technology was heavily used by the Eugenics Records Office (Bix, 1997). Additionally, later iterations of the punchcard machines were used by women in accounting positions (Hicks, 2017).

Sources:

IBM. The punched card tabulator | IBM. (n.d.). https://www.ibm.com/history/punched-card-tabulator

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Economic Values of Foods Chart indicating foods, and their prices and nutrient value from Smith (1864)

# data[].attributes.body
This chart is an example of early dietetics research, in which the amount of carbon and nitrogen in a food is compared to it's price to help citizens make efficient and thrifty diet decisions (Smith, 1864). This is the kind of thing that those cooking for families, predominantly women, would be expected to understand and implement within their domestic work.

Source:

Smith, E. (1864). Practical Dietary for Families, Schools, and The Labouring Classes. Walton and Maberly. Retrieved from

https://canvas.sfu.ca/courses/82243/files/23227644?module_item_id=3235334

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
"The first page of “The Computer Girls” article by Lois Mandel in the April 1967 issue of Cosmopolitan." (Staiti, 2021)

# data[].attributes.body
Note: "Now have come the big dazzling computers - and a whole new kind of work for women: programming", "Just like planning a dinner", and "women are 'naturals'".

This 1967 article promotes computing science positions for women, with the false narrative that this is a "natural" position for women and their labour and will be valued in this area. In reality the work they were being offered was often seen as low-skilled (Hicks, 2017).

Source:

Staiti, A. (2021). Just like “planning a dinner”? The feminization of computer programming. National Museum of American History. https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/just-planning-dinner-feminization-computer-programming

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
"Hopper's badge, marking her as staff at Harvard's Cruft Laboratory" (Kidwell & Grabowski, 2018).

# data[].attributes.body
Grace Hopper, a member of WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), found work after the war in computation work at Harvard University (Kidwell & Grabowski, 2018). This badge both serves as a physical reminder of her labour and her position.

Source:

Kidwell, P. A., & Grabowski, A. (2018). Grace under pressure. National Museum of American History. https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/grace-under-pressure

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
An article in the August 1941 edition of Good Housekeeping Magazine titled "America expects every cook to do her duty" 

# data[].attributes.body
This article from Good Housekeeping Magazine in 1941 indicates the power of dietetics to permeate culture and also indicates the narrative that the nutrition of the family was a women's responsibility. Gendered language is used to target women into believing this is "the part" they "must play" within society. The image suggests a white, well-dressed, potentially middle-to upper class family woman is the ideal provider for society and this image should be something to look towards as inspiration.

Source:

Mitchell, H. S. (1941). America expects every cook to do her duty. Good Housekeeping, 113, 138-138, 175. Retrieved from http://proxy.lib.sfu.ca/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/magazines/america-expects-every-cook-do-her-duty/docview/1847829463/se-2

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
"A team of computers work at Harvard University (around 1900) to analyze observations and measurements; they were paid less than if they were factory workers. From the Hollis Archives at Harvard Library." (Wallace, 2022)

# data[].attributes.body
This image shows women as human computers at Harvard University. The caption suggests they were paid less than factory workers, despite their work involving skilled mathematical calculations. This is an example of early computation, where women's work is devalued.

Source:

Wallace, R. (2022). Admiral Grace Murray Hopper: When Women Were Computers. The National WWII Museum | New Orleans. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/grace-hopper-woman-computer#:~:text=She%20became%20associate%20professor%20at,important%20to%20the%20war%20effort.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
A photograph from the 1920's showing women working as human computers. The Computer History Museum describes this photograph as: "a typical hierarchy of calculation workers: seated low-skilled punch operators in the majority, their immediate supervisors standing behind them, a few sorting-machine operators nearer the windows, and their supervisors behind them."

# data[].attributes.body
This description simplifies the work these women were doing as "low-skilled" and in need of supervision.

The CHM section "Computers before Computers" highlights male "innovators" of computation as those who have "saved" society from this repetitive and tedious work. This highlights the continued devaluation and erasure of women's labour in early computing history, as even today these narratives of innovation pervade history telling.

Source:

Large-scale tabulating operation - CHM Revolution. (n.d.). https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/birth-of-the-computer/4/83/272

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
An interview clip with one of the ENIAC's programmers, Jean Bartik, speaking about her experience as a programmer and the erasure of her and her colleague's labour.

# data[].attributes.body
"People never recognized.. they never acted as though we knew what we were doing. I mean we were in a lot of pictures, but they never asked us anything" - Jean Bartik

Bartik explains decades later about the skilled complexity of the labour needed for programmers of the ENIAC, alongside the lack of recognition her and her fellow programmers received for their work, highlighting the erasure of their labour.

Source:

Jean Bartik: ENIAC’s Programmers - CHM Revolution. (2011). https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/birth-of-the-computer/4/78/2258

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Date

2011

Producer

Executive Producer: Jon Plutte. Produced by Aimee Gardner. Edited by David Richardson, DR & Associates.

Copyright Owner

© Computer History Museum

Keywords

Video

Object ID

102695698

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Date 2011 Producer Executive Producer: Jon Plutte. Produced by Aimee Gardner. Edited by David Richardson, DR & Associates. Copyright Owner © Computer History Museum Keywords Video Object ID 102695698

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Page 2/2 of The New York Times ENIAC article in 1946.

# data[].attributes.body
Although this article features an image that depicts women working on the ENIAC in the background, it takes much more space to highlight the men (Mauchly and Eckert Jr.) leading the project. This article is an example of what Light (1999, p. 473) explains as the "orchestrated" PR the War Department used when sharing the ENIAC with media and public.

Source:

The New York Times ENIAC article - CHM Revolution. (n.d.). https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/birth-of-the-computer/4/78/323

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
"Reprogramming ENIAC Programmers Marlyn Wescoff (left) and Ruth Lichterman (right) reprogram the ENIAC in 1946. US Army Research Library." (Wallace, 2022)

# data[].attributes.body
An example of the kinds of photos that existed on women operating the ENIAC that were overlooked in media about the ENIAC, partly due to The War Department's curated PR campaign. This act encouraged the erasure of women's mental and physical labour on the ENIAC computer (Light, 1999). Wescoff and Lichterman were two of the women sent to the Moore School to program the ENIAC in 1945 (Light, 1999).

Source:

Wallace, R. (2022). Admiral Grace Murray Hopper: When Women Were Computers. The National WWII Museum | New Orleans. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/grace-hopper-woman-computer#:~:text=She%20became%20associate%20professor%20at,important%20to%20the%20war%20effort.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
An ad placed in Ladies' Home Journal by the American Dietetic Association in 1992 features a chart similar to Smith's Economic Values of Foods chart. 

# data[].attributes.body
In this ad, placed by the American Dietetic Association in Ladies' Home Journal, a chart similar to Smith's Economic Values of Foods chart highlights an expectation of what women should be feeding their families to keep them healthy. This narrative, originating from earlier studies of the body and its purpose to society, suggests that women are responsible for the nutrition of the family. Even decades later, in the 1990's, this dietetics narrative is still being marketed to women.

Source:

Tribole, E. (1992). National center for nutrition and dietetics. Ladies' Home Journal, 109, 178. Retrieved from http://proxy.lib.sfu.ca/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/magazines/national-center-nutrition-dietetics/docview/1926463725/se-2

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Music Video: Paris Paloma - LABOUR (the cacophony)

# data[].attributes.body
The capillaries in my eyes are bursting,
If our love died, would that be the worst thing?
For somebody I thought was my saviour,
You sure make me do a whole lot of labour.

(Paris Paloma, 2024)

This song, and its video, indicate a modern acknowledgement and rejection of women's traditional roles within society. The same powers that have historically exploited and erased women's labour still exist today. The clips are compiled from social media, indicating the ways in which modern technologies are being used to question and reject these long held social expectations of women.

Source:

Paris Paloma. (2024). Paris Paloma - LABOUR (the cacophony) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JDFRTRjozc

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
The Exploitation of Women's Bodies and Labour in the History of New Information Technologies: Works Cited

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
"Kalliak family of New Jersey, 'Normal and Degenerate Lines'" (Week 5, Slide 53)

# data[].attributes.body
This is an image of one of the charts that eugenics fieldworkers would be creating. You can see how "normal" and "degenerate" areas of this family tree are indicated using a few symbols and notes. As Bix (1997) explains, this work was considered part of skilled scientific methodology, and fieldworkers would be required to have training in order to record data effectively, as per the Eugenics Record office and Charles Davenport's satisfaction.

Source:

Dick, S. (2024a). CMNS 353 D100: The Information Age: Week 5: Bodies [Lecture Slides].

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
"Wyeth Laboratories of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, manufactured these oral contraceptives during the late 20th century. The logo of the "blue lady" taking her "family planning pill" adorned all U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) oral contraceptive packages that were distributed to worldwide family planning programs." (National Museum of American History, 2013).

# data[].attributes.body
A project of reproductive control, birth control has a complicated history deeply rooted in eugenics (University of Michigan Reproductive Justice Exhibit Planning Team, n.d.). Birth control was argued by some to be an alternative to forced sterilizations, and by others to be a tool to allow women to gain reproductive autonomy (University of Michigan Reproductive Justice Exhibit Planning Team, n.d.). This places birth control in a complicated position between "controlling" and "freeing" women.

Source:

National Museum of American History. Critical intersections: Histories of Latinos, reproduction, and disability. (2013). https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/critical-intersections-histories-latinos-reproduction-and-disability

Works Cited:

University of Michigan Reproductive Justice Exhibit Planning Team. Birthing Reproductive Justice: 150 years of Images and Ideas | Whose Reproductive bodies? · Online exhibits. (n.d.). https://apps.lib.umich.edu/online-exhibits/exhibits/show/reproductive-justice/overview

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
"Poster created by Rachael Romero for a 1971 rally against forced sterilization in San Francisco. Image source: Library of Congress." (McCain, 2022)

# data[].attributes.body
This poster was created to protest against the forced sterilization of women, especially women of colour. It indicates the awareness and discontent surrounding these practices. It also indicates the public pushback against the eugenic beliefs that governments, like Canada and The United States, were using.

Source:

McCain, M. (2022). Robbing Reproductive Autonomy: Forced Sterilizations in the Americas and the Inter-American Human Rights System’s Response. Princeton University: Journal of Public and International Affairs. https://jpia.princeton.edu/news/robbing-reproductive-autonomy-forced-sterilizations-americas-and-inter-american-human-rights