Frances Spence - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Frances Spence was one of the original programmers for the ENIAC

ENIAC

ENIAC was the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was a Turing-complete digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems....

computer.

She was born Frances Bilas in Philadelphia

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

in 1922. She attended Temple University

Temple University

Temple University is a comprehensive public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Originally founded in 1884 by Dr. Russell Conwell, Temple University is among the nation's largest providers of professional education and prepares the largest body of professional...

but then was awarded a scholarship to Chestnut Hill College

Chestnut Hill College

Chestnut Hill College is a coeducational Roman Catholic college in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It was founded in 1924 as a women's college by the Sisters of St. Joseph. It was originally called Mount Saint Joseph College and assumed its current name in 1938. In...

. She majored in mathematics with a minor in physics and graduated in 1942. While there, she met Kathleen McNulty

Kathleen Antonelli

Kathleen "Kay" McNulty Mauchly Antonelli was one of the six original programmers of the ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer.-Early life and education:...

, who also later became an ENIAC programmer. Although one of the original programmers of the ENIAC, her role as well as the other woman contributors were downplayed, due to the stigma that woman didn't like technology. McNulty and Spence were hired by the Moore School of Engineering to compute ballistics

Ballistics

Ballistics is the science of mechanics that deals with the flight, behavior, and effects of projectiles, especially bullets, gravity bombs, rockets, or the like; the science or art of designing and accelerating projectiles so as to achieve a desired performance.A ballistic body is a body which is...

trajectories

Trajectory

A trajectory is the path that a moving object follows through space as a function of time. The object might be a projectile or a satellite, for example. It thus includes the meaning of orbit—the path of a planet, an asteroid or a comet as it travels around a central mass...

. Both were selected to become part of the first group of programmers for the ENIAC, which was designed to perform the same calculations. In 1947, she married Homer Spence, an Army electrical engineer from the Aberdeen Proving Grounds who had been assigned to the ENIAC project and later became head of the Computer Research Branch. Shortly after that, she resigned to raise a family.

In 1997 she was inducted into the Women in Technology International

Women in Technology International

Women in Technology International is a worldwide organization dedicated to the advancement of women in business and technology. It was established in 1989 by Carolyn Leighton as an email-based information network business....

Hall of Fame, along with the other original ENIAC programmers

See also