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  • Proving Ground

  • The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World's First Modern Computer
  • Written by: Kathy Kleiman
  • Narrated by: Erin Bennett
  • Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
  • 5.0 out of 5 stars (1 rating)

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Proving Ground

Written by: Kathy Kleiman
Narrated by: Erin Bennett
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Publisher's Summary

Discover a fascinating look into the lives of six historic trailblazers in this World War II-era story of the American women who programmed the world's first modern computer.

After the end of World War II, the race for technological supremacy sped on. Top-secret research into ballistics and computing, begun during the war to aid those on the front lines, continued across the United States as engineers and programmers rushed to complete their confidential assignments. Among them were six pioneering women, tasked with figuring out how to program the world's first general-purpose, programmable, all-electronic computer—better known as the ENIAC—even though there were no instruction codes or programming languages in existence. While most students of computer history are aware of this innovative machine, the great contributions of the women who programmed it were never told—until now.

Over the course of a decade, Kathy Kleiman met with four of the original six ENIAC Programmers and recorded extensive interviews with the women about their work. Proving Ground restores these women to their rightful place as technological revolutionaries. As the tech world continues to struggle with gender imbalance and its far-reaching consequences, the story of the ENIAC Programmers' groundbreaking work is more urgently necessary than ever before, and Proving Ground is the celebration they deserve.

©2022 Kathy Kleiman (P)2022 Grand Central Publishing

What the critics say

“Everyone told Kathy Kleiman that the women she sought did not exist. Thankfully, she didn’t believe them. In Proving Ground, Kleiman pursues her subjects with the instincts of an investigative journalist, uncovering the stories of six groundbreaking women who battled sexism, complex trajectory equations, and blown vacuum tubes in order to program the world’s first digital computer. With unforgettable, detailed prose, Kleiman blends the history of early computing with the lives of the women who made modern programming possible. Proving Ground is a book so deeply inspiring that it has the power to completely alter how we see the technology field and the role of women within it.”—Nathalia Holt, New York Times bestselling author of Rise of the Rocket Girls

“With this book, Kathy Kleiman restores the ENIAC 6 to their rightful, lauded place in the history of computing. The bond she developed with these women through her years of research and interviews is evident, as each of them come vibrantly and vividly alive in her writing. Their story will serve as inspiration for generations of women in STEM.”—Keith O’Brien, author of Fly Girls

“Kleiman has a novelist’s gift for crafting a page-turning narrative, and the one on offer is both revelatory and inspiring. Fans of Dava Sobel’s The Glass Universe and Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures are in for a treat.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

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