Elsie Shutt
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Elsie Shutt | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1928 (age 95–96) |
| Education | Goucher College (B.A.) |
| Occupation |
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| Known for | “The excitement of designing a system: . . . finding out what the problem is; analyzing it; designing something that will make it work; doing it; seeing it work, and having a client who is happy with it. That’s very satisfying.” - Elsie Shutt, 2001 |
Elsie Shutt (née Goedeke, born 1928) is an American technology entrepreneur. She started Computations Incorporated (Comp Inc) in 1957. She was one of the first women to start a software business in the United States.[1][2][3]
Early life and education
[edit]Elsie Shutt was born in New York City and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. She attended Eastern High School in Baltimore and graduated from Goucher College at age 20. She later completed a graduate fellowship in mathematics at Radcliffe College.
Career
[edit]Early years
[edit]Shutt learned to program on ENIAC under Dick Clippinger during a summer job at U.S. Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.[2][4] In 1953 Shutt was hired at Raytheon (an aerospace and defense manufacturing company) where she worked on software for the Raycom computer.[2][5] By 1957, Shutt was freelance programming work from her home in 1957 and launched 'Computer Incorporated'
Computations Incorporated
[edit]Elsie Shutt's founding of Computations Incorporated was groundbreaking. At the time, few women worked in the male-dominated field of computer science. According to Janet Abbate, author of Recoding Gender: Women's Changing Participation in Computing, Shutt was among the early pioneers who showed that women could excel in programming and systems analysis while managing family responsibilities.
Comp Inc. became known for its high-quality software solutions, which were provided to major clients such as Raytheon and the U.S. Air Force.[6][7][8] Shutt led the company for more than 45 years, preferentially hiring women with young children, her aim to increase women's chances of obtaining programming employment.[9] Low-experienced employees had access to training programs to further pursue this aim.[9]
The company utilized systems analysis and design along with programming help for primary clients .[9][8] Computations, Inc. also emphasized “desk-checking” between employees (manually checking each other's code). At its peak, her company entered into contracts with Minneapolis-Honeywell,[8] Raytheon,[8] St. Regis Paper Co.,[8] Harvard University,[8] The University of Rochester,[8] and the United States Air Force.[8][10]
References
[edit]- ^ "Episode 576: When Women Stopped Coding". NPR.org. Archived from the original on 2018-08-09. Retrieved 2018-08-12.
- ^ a b c Janet Abbate (2012). Recoding Gender: Women's Changing Participation in Computing. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-01806-7.
- ^ Janet Abbate (21 October 2014). "The women who shaped the computer age". Theweek.com.
- ^ Thompson, Clive (13 February 2019). "The Secret History of Women in Coding". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
- ^ Eliana Keinan (2017). "A New Frontier: But for Whom? An Analysis of the Micro-Computer and Women's Declining Participation in Computer Science". Scholarship.claremont.edu. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
- ^ "Recoding Gender". MIT Press. Retrieved 2024-09-17.
- ^ "Oral-History:Elsie Shutt - Engineering and Technology History Wiki". Ethw.org. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Mixing Math and Motherhood". Business Week: 86–87. March 1963.
- ^ a b c Janet Abbate (2012). Recoding Gender: Women's Changing Participation in Computing. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-01806-7.
- ^ Betty Friedan (1998). It Changed My Life: Writings on the Women's Movement. Harvard University Press. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-674-46885-6.