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Browsing by Subject "Herr, Lois Kathryn"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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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 Fran Chessler
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2016-01-14) Chessler, Fran
    Fran Chessler attended the University of Michigan as a General Motors Scholar, majoring in mathematics and psychology and graduating in 1970. She went to work at Bell Labs Naperville, working on assembly-language programming to collect call data for 1ESS. She discusses the gender biases in the STA and MTS hiring grades. Promoted to MTS she did a master’s at Northwestern University. She discusses affirmative action and the distinct culture of Bell Labs Indian Hill/Naperville. In part owing to connections from the Men and Women in the Work Environment workshops, she moved to the computer center department doing systems programming on IBM computers. She describes an effective management style by her supervisor, Dana Dunn. She moved into a department chief position at Western Electric’s network system division, and compares affirmative action there to Bell Labs. In the mid-1980s she experienced unsettled times in AT&T computer systems, then returned to Bell Labs (all in Chicago) as a supervisor. In moving to the business side as senior product manager, she completed an executive MBA at Northwestern University; and retired from AT&T in 2001. 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).”