Did you work as a "Human Computer" or mathematician for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) from the 1930s through the 1970s? 

Did your mother, grandmother, sister or wife work as a NACA/NASA computer? Were you the colleague of a computer? We need your stories!

THE HUMAN COMPUTER PROJECT is a "virtual museum" dedicated to the work of the female mathematicians who helped America's aeronautics and space programs. Our goal is to document all of the women who engaged in this important work, but we also need your help! We're looking for details on the lives of individual women, and any photos, research reports and other artifacts that document their work.  

This website is launching in October 2014, at www.thehumancomputerproject.com. Want to tell your story? Email us at thehumancomputerproject [at] gmail.com.

The Human Computer Project will also provide context on the role that all women played in the early days of aeronautics and astronautics, and the significant contributions that women have made over the years as computers to ballistics, meteorology, the social sciences, and more. This website will give background on the discipline of computing, and offer insight into the economic, sociological and political reasons for women's robust participation in the field. 

The Hampton Roads Chapter of ASALH (the Association for the Study) sponsored this project in its earliest days; the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities provided seed funding and a follow-on grant.

Learn more:

NASA Human Computing Page. Background information on Human Computing at NASA, and profiles of some of the women who turned the job into a career.

NASA Racial Relations Page. History of NASA's black employees, from the days of Jim Crow to the moon landing.

Human Computers: The Women in Aeronautical Research. Beverly Golemba's well-researched manuscript presents oral histories from thirteen former Langley mathematicians, including three black women.

Negro Women War Workers. This 1945 government publication shows the breadth of black women's contributions to the World War II war effort.