In September of 1941, sixteen-year-old twin sisters Doris and Shirley Blumberg were beginning their senior year at Girls High School in Philadelphia. Twelve hundred miles away, ambitious sixteen year old farm girl Betty Jean Jennings was beginning her first semester at Northwest Missouri State Teacher’s College.
Although all three were college bound, they had few plans beyond graduation. But less than three months later, on December 7, 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, throwing the US into World War II and setting the three girls on a course that would change both their lives and history.
Adapted from the award winning documentary Top Secret Rosies: The Female Computers of WWII, The Computer Wore Heels is an interactive pdf aimed at young adults, offering young people, particularly girls, much needed role models in the area of science, math and computer engineering.
Combining classic text-based storytelling with interactive media elements, The Computer Wore Heels shares a story of female computer pioneers who used their math skills to help win a war and usher in the modern computer age.