Browsing by Subject "Electronic Switching System (ESS)"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Oral history interview with Anita B. Marsh
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-09) Marsh, Anita B.
    Anita Marsh majored in mathematics at Texas Tech and gained a master’s degree in mathematics at Northwestern University in Chicago in 1968, then took a position at Bell Laboratories (Naperville, IL) where she learned IBM assembly language on the job. One early assignment was creating a software emulator for the hardware of an ESS then in development. Marsh describes her experiences working part-time or flexible hours as a full Member of Technical Staff while raising children and lobbying for day care. Subsequent assignments were in internetworking, commercial UNIX, and 5ESS. In recognition of her technical achievements, she was made a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff in 1983 and retired from Bell in 1996. She describes her subsequent software work for Tellabs in wireless telephones and VOIP and for Arris in cable modems. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
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    Oral history interview with Ann S. Kaufman
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-23) Kaufman, Ann S.
    Ann Kaufman graduated from an all-girls academic high school, then took a bachelor’s degree in math from Queens College (CUNY) with a Regent’s Scholarship and then a master’s degree in math from Duke University. After teaching mathematics at a junior high school for three years, she took her first computer science courses at Staten Island College where an instructor arranged an interview with Bell Labs. Hired at Bell she took a master’s in computer science at Stevens Institute of Technology. She relates her experiences on assignment at Bell Southern, an operating company, and her subsequent Bell Labs work in programming, systems engineering, product management, and systems integration. She then traveled extensively in helping internationalize AT&T's Unix system, and then worked in different capacities for Novell and Santa Cruz Operation (SCO), after they successively bought the Unix division. She returned to Lucent Technologies then Avaya, doing project management for several data centers. Then, after a post-2001 hiatus, she returned to project-management and consulting work for Diageo (the drinks conglomerate). She offers thoughts on outsourcing and professional entrance in the IT workforce. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
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    Oral history interview with Beth Eddy
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-10) Eddy, Beth
    Beth Eddy grew up in rural New York state then graduated with a math degree from Elmhurst College (outside Chicago). She accepted a job in 1966 at Western Electric working on the pioneering ESS, initially in downtown Chicago and then relocating to the Bell Labs Indian Hill facility in Naperville. Her work involved assembly or machine language programming, eventually COBOL, supporting large databases for the ESS project. After three years, she moved into installation engineering for ESS. She describes tactics for women’s “voice” to be effectively heard in meetings. She led a protest against a men-only ‘Stag Picnic’ (described also in Lois Herr’s Women, Power and AT&T [2002]). With a promotion to department chief, she became the earliest women in Western Electric management. To achieve salary parity, she arranged a transfer to AT&T headquarters and worked in maintenance engineering, another male-dominated area, returning to Indian Hill (around 1980) as assistant manager of the data center and a development group. She then took on supervisory positions in Human Relations, building construction, software development, and switching installation. She discusses strategies for attracting women and African-American staff as well as managing a diverse workforce. She shares observations on the 1970s women’s movement and its subsequent evolution. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
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    Oral history interview with Carolyn S. Miller
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-01) Miller, Carolyn S.
    Carolyn S. Miller graduated in 1968 with a degree in mathematics from the University of Kentucky, which had significant computing courses at the time. She took a job at Bell Laboratories military division in Whippany, New Jersey, working on the Safeguard Ballistic Missile Defense System while gaining a master’s degree from Stevens Institute of Technology. When Bell canceled the missile project, she moved with other Whippany staff to Bell Labs in Naperville, Illinois, to work on software for ESS (Electronic Switching System). The interview discusses affirmative action and the women’s movement. She left Bell in 1976 for General Electric and then North Carolina State, where she experienced significant gender differences in teaching introductory computer science. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
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    Oral history interview with Helen Ann Bauer
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-08) Bauer, Helen Ann
    Helen Bauer studied computer science and mathematics at Purdue University, graduating in 1972 and then starting work as a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories in Naperville, Illinois. The interview describes Bell’s affirmative action committees and workshops and its corporate culture. Bauer relates her experiences moving into managerial positions beginning in 1977, finding role models in co-workers, organizing support groups for women in management, and relating anecdotes about challenges. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
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    Oral history interview with Helen Ann Bauer, Fran Chessler, Mary R. Feay, Mary Holt, Joyce Malleck, and Anita B. Marsh
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2016-11-18) Bauer, Helen Ann; Chessler, Fran; Feay, Mary R.; Holt, Mary; Malleck, Joyce; Marsh, Anita B.
    This interview — with Helen Bauer, Fran Chessler, Mary Feay, Mary Holt, Joyce Malleck, and Anita Marsh — took place during a two-hour luncheon. The interview does not have a biographical or career narrative, and is only loosely chronological. The interviewer posed periodic questions but the interview is mostly the stories, anecdotes, and observations of these six women. The topics include dress codes and AT&T corporate culture; early job experiences and attraction to programming and computing; women in leadership positions at Bell Labs; affirmative action committees and workshops; interactions with the wider 1970s women’s movement; personal experiences with child care; the impact of the Urban Minorities Workshop; observations about the levels of women in computing today; reflections on the transformation of the women’s movement, and responses to the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president (ten days prior to this interview); comparisons of computing with other professions; and general observations about recent modes of computing including mobile computing and social media. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
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    Oral history interview with Jo Anne Miller
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2016-01-04) Miller, Jo Anne
    Jo Anne Miller graduated in December 1967 with a degree in mathematics from the University of Michigan, where she had experience with computer programming. She took a job in Boston at GTE Sylvania working on military projects, then moved to St. Louis (when her husband was drafted) and ran a computer center at Parks College of St. Louis University, then did research at University of Colorado where she worked on a Master’s degree. She was recruited (a second time) by Bell Labs and began work at Bell Labs Naperville in March 1976, as a Member of Technical Staff working in software restructuring for electronic switching systems. She describes her experience with affirmative action, the women’s movement, and work culture and career expectations at Bell Labs. In 1978 she became a technical supervisor for 5ESS software development, relating short-term rotational experiences with installing 5ESS in California and in southern Illinois. She describes challenges advocating for part-time managerial positions, child care, and suggests there were changes in the support for affirmative action in the 1980s. Working for the Western Electric organization in the mid-1980s, she completed an executive MBA at the University of Chicago. After leaving Bell she became involved with MentorNet in 2003 and in investing in women-backed businesses. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
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    Oral history interview with Joyce Malleck
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2008-08-01) Malleck, Joyce
    Joyce Malleck graduated from Mundelein College with a major in math and a minor in physics, and then received a master’s degree in math from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She accepted a job at Western Electric and went to work at the Bell Labs facility in Naperville, Illinois. She did programming courses at the corporate training center in Princeton NJ, learning COBOL, assembler, PL/1, and a proprietary Bell database management language. (She later did a MBA at the University of Chicago, completed in 1980.) An early assignment was programming to direct an automatic wiring machine for the ESS manufacturing. She was promoted to department chief, initially maintaining a data center’s operating system then doing software and database development for the customer side of ESS. In the 1970s she started a software quality department, which involved greater attention to written formal specifications, code reviews, and structured developmental processes — software engineering. Leaving Bell in 1989, she worked for Motorola for ten years as a product manager and consultant to industry. She compares Bell’s and Motorola’s treatment of and attitudes to women, relating insightful personal anecdotes. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
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    Oral history interview with Mary R. Feay
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-09) Feay, Mary R.
    Mary Feay attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, taking an undergraduate degree in mathematics and then two master’s, in math and computer science, in 1966-67. She accepted a job with Bell Labs and began work initially in New Jersey, then moved to Bell Labs Indian Hill in Naperville, IL, working in the computer center doing operating systems and programming languages — creating software tools used in developing the electronic switching systems (ESS). She was promoted in 1977 into supervisory roles for system testing, office applications, and standards-setting. The latter included a three-year stint (1980-83) participating in the development of CHILL, the CCITT High Level Language. She assesses a set of 1967 advertisements from the trade journal Datamation, then relates her experience at Bell during the 1970s with affirmative action as well as hiring practices. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”