PROGRAM

On March 17, 2011, Roosevelt House hosted a film screening of Top: Secret ‘Rosies’: The Female Computers of WWII in celebration of Women’s History Month. The screening was followed by a Q&A with filmmaker LeAnn Erickson.

About the Film:

In 1942, a secret US military program was launched to recruit women to the war effort. But unlike the efforts to recruit Rosie to the factory, this search targeted female mathematicians who would become human ‘computers’ for the Army. From the bombing of Axis Europe to the assaults on Japanese strongholds, women worked round-the-clock shifts creating ballistics tables for every weapon in the US arsenal. Rosie made the weapons, but the female computers made them accurate. When the first electronic computer (ENIAC) was developed to aid the Army’s calculation efforts, six of these women were tapped to become its first programmers. While the work of these human computers proved crucial to allied victory, it also carried a moral weight-how to square the larger issue of ending a world war against the personal recognition that their mathematical computations made every Allied bomb and gun more deadly. 2010 marked the 65th anniversary of the end of WWII, yet the amazing account of these women remains untold, until now. Top Secret ‘Rosies’: The Female ‘Computers’ of WWII shares a story of the women and technology that helped win a war and usher in the modern computer age.

About the Filmmaker:

LeAnn Erickson is an independent video/filmmaker and Associate Professor of film and video production at Temple University. Her work has appeared on public television, in galleries, and has won national and international recognition in video/film festivals. She is a recipient of regional and national production grants for her work and, most recently, was awarded the 2006 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship for Media Arts.


Film Screening of Top Secret Rosies | Posted on March 17th, 2011 | Public Programs