Betty Holberton

Frances Elizabeth "Betty" Holberton (March 7, 1917 – December 8, 2001) was one of the six original programmers of ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer. Holberton was born Frances Elizabeth Snyder in Philadelphia in 1917. On her first day of classes at the University of Pennsylvania, Holberton's math professor told her that she should stay home raising children instead of wasting her time attempting to achieve a degree in mathematics, and was thus discouraged from pursuing it. Instead, Holberton decided to study journalism, because its curriculum let her travel far a-field. Journalism was also one of the few programs of study open to women during that time. During World War II while the men were fighting, the Army...