When Computers Were Human

by David Alan Grier

  37. Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital, p. 220.

  38. Grattan-Guinness, “Work for the Hairdressers.” The planners included Marc-Antoine Parseval (d. 1836), whose name is associated with “Parseval’s inequality.” Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times, p. 716.

  39. Babbage, Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, pp. 193, 194.

  40. Ibid., p. 194.

  41. Grattan-Guinness, “Work for the Hairdressers.”

  42. Lalande, Bibliographie Astronomique avec l’Histoire de l’Astronomie (1802), pp. 743–44.

  43. Bradley, Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony, pp. 19, 10.

  44. See Guillaume, Procès-Verbaux du Comité d’Instruction Publique (1904), pp. 556–61.

  45. Alder, “A Revolution to Measure” (1995).

  46. Quoted in Bradley, Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony, p. 68.

  47. Grattan-Guinness, “Work for the Hairdressers”; Charles Babbage to Sir Humphrey Davy, July 3, 1822, in Morrison and Morrison, Charles Babbage and His Calculating Engines, pp. 298–305.

  48. Hyman, Charles Babbage, pp. 29, 39–40.

  49. See Schaffer, “Babbage’s Intelligence” (1994), p. 204.

  50. Hyman, Charles Babbage, p. 34.

  51. Ashworth, “The Calculating Eye.”

  52. “Prospectus for the Astronomical Society,” 1820, RAS.

  53. Babbage, History of the Invention of the Calculating Engines.

  54. Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864), p. 31.

  55. See Swade, The Cogwheel Brain, pp. 26–27.

  56. Hyman, Charles Babbage, pp. 40–41; Grattan-Guinness, “Work for the Hairdressers.”

  57. Babbage, Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (1835), p. 191.

  58. Ibid., p. 187.

  59. Williams, A History of Computing Technology, pp. 124, 129.

  60. Cardwell, Norton History of Technology, p. 230.

  61. Williams, A History of Computing Technology, p. 145.

  62. Charles Babbage to Sir Humphrey Davy, July 3, 1822, in Morrison and Morrison, Charles Babbage and His Calculating Engines, p. 305.

  63. Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, section 3, chapter 5.

  64. Charles Babbage to Sir Humphrey Davy, July 3, 1822, in Morrison and Morrison, Charles Babbage and His Calculating Engines, p. 305.

  65. Dreyer and Turner, History of the Royal Astronomical Society, appendix: medal winners.

  66. Baily, “On Mr. Babbage’s New Machine” (1823).

  67. Hyman, Charles Babbage, p. 65.

  68. Babbage, Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (1835), p. 267.

  69. Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann, p. 19.

  70. Lovelace, “Notes by the Translator,” in Morrison and Morrison, Charles Babbage and His Calculating Engines, p. 251.

  71. Hyman, Charles Babbage, p. 165.

  72. Babbage, Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, p. 169.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE CELESTIAL FACTORY

  1. Dickens, Charles, Hard Times, Project Gutenberg Edition, “The Keynote.”

  2. Yeomans, Comets.

  3. Maunder, The Royal Observatory Greenwich, chapter 3.

  4. Wilkins, “A History of H.M. Nautical Almanac Office,” p. 56.

  5. Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 2, no. 2 (February 11, 1831), pp. 11–12.

  6. Ibid., no. 25 (February 12,1830), p. 166.

  7. Ashworth, “The Calculating Eye.”

  8. South, “Report on Nautical Almanac” (1831), pp. 459–71, p. 461.

  9. Dunkin, A Far Off Vision, p. 45.

  10. Nautical Almanac for 1835, London, John Murray, 1833, p. 493.

  11. Yeomans, Comets (1991), pp. 256–57.

  12. Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 3, no. 20 (February 12, 1836), pp. 161–62.

  13. Ibid.

  14. Report by the Astronomer Royal to the Board of Visitors for 1837, London, 1838.

  15. Smith, R., “A National Observatory Transformed”; Cannon, Science and Culture, p. 38.

  16. Smith, R., “A National Observatory Transformed.”

  17. Quoted in Ashworth, “The Calculating Eye.”

  18. The Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe is generally credited with giving the task of reduction to human computers.

  19. Smith, R., “A National Observatory Transformed”; Schaffer, “Astronomers Mark Time” (1988), pp. 115–45; Maunder, The Royal Observatory Greenwich, p. 117; Dunkin, A Far Off Vision, p. 72.

  20. W. H. M. Christie quoted in Meadows, Greenwich Observatory, vol. 2, p. 9.

  21. Dunkin, A Far Off Vision, p. 45.

  22. Ibid., p. 72.

  23. Ibid., p. 96.

  24. Dickens, Charles, Hard Times, Project Gutenberg Edition, “The Keynote.”

  25. Maunder, The Royal Observatory Greenwich, p. 117.

  26. Meadows, Greenwich Observatory, p. 11.

  27. Dunkin, A Far Off Vision, p. 71.

  28. Meadows, Greenwich Observatory, p. 7.

  29. Chapman, “Sir George Airy,” p. 332.

  30. Smith, Wealth of Nations, book I, chapter 1.

  31. See Annual Reports of the Astronomer Royal to the Board of Visitors, beginning in 1836.

  32. George Airy to Henry Goulburn, September 16, 1842, 6-427, folder 68, GREENWICH.

  33. Swade, The Cogwheel Brain, p. 153.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE AMERICAN PRIME MERIDIAN

  1. Latrobe, The History of Mason and Dixon’s Line.

  2. Croarken, “Tabulating the Heavens” (2003); fragment labeled “Paper given at Columbian Institute,” undated correspondence, MOORE; Joshua I. Moore to Thomas Jefferson, September 7, 1805; Thomas Jefferson to Joshua I. Moore, September 19, 1805, JEFFERSON.

  3. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, book 2, chapter 9.

  4. Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, p. 42.

  5. Dick and Doggett, Sky with Ocean Joined, p. 169; see also Dick, Sky with Ocean Joined.

  6. Theberge, History of the Commissioned Corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “personnel policies,” pp. 84ff. (“Investigation of 1842”).

  7. Will of James Smithson, quoted in Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, p. 66.

  8. See Congressional Globe, 30th Cong., 2d sess., HR 699, “An Act Making appropriations for the naval service, for the year ending the thirtieth of June, 1850.”

  9. Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (1893).

  10. Matthew Fontaine Maury quoted in Waff, “Navigation vs. Astronomy.”

  11. Anonymous (1849); Waff concludes that Peirce or Davis was the most likely author (see Waff, “Navigation vs. Astronomy,” p. 97).

  12. Waff, “Navigation vs. Astronomy,” p. 97.

  13. Davis, C. H., II, Life of Charles Henry Davis (1899), pp. 4, 64, 89.

  14. Ibid., p. 91.

  15. Ibid., p. 58.

  16. Ibid., pp. 4, 64, 89.

  17. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, “Nature,” section 4.

  18. Peterson, “Benjamin Peirce,” pp. 89–112.

  19. Charles Henry Davis to William Ballard Preston, July 30, 1849, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

  20. Davis, C. H., “Report of the Secretary of the Navy” (1852), p. 6.

  21. Davis, C. H., “Report on the Nautical Almanac” (1852).

  22. Charles Henry Davis to William Ballard Preston, July 30, 1849, box 15, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

  23. Morando, “The Golden Age of Celestial Mechanics.”

  24. Gottfried Galle to Jean Joseph Le Verrier, September 25, 1846, quoted ibid.

  25. Thoreau, Walden, section 1, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.”

  26. Charles Henry Davis to Charles Peirce, August 5, 1849, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

  27. Tyler, John David Runkle; “Annual Report for the United States Navy for 1852,” p. 8.

  28. Gould, “Commemoration of Sears Cook Walker.”

  29. Ibid.

  30. Benj
amin Peirce to Matthew Fontaine Maury, January 21, 1846, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

  31. Maury, Matthew, “Report on Leverrier,” Nautical Almanac Correspondence, January 1847, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

  32. Maury, Matthew, Report to Secretary of the Navy, February 7, 1847, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

  33. Charles Henry Davis to William Ballard Preston, “Reply on employing subordinate computers,” OBSERVATORY-LOC.

  34. Jones and Boyd, The Harvard College Observatory, p. 384.

  35. Fuller, Margaret, Women in the Nineteenth Century (1844), in The Essential Margaret Fuller, Jeffrey Steele, ed., New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press, 1992, p. 260. See also her story of Miranda, pp. 261ff.

  36. Wright, Sweeper in the Sky (1949), p. 23.

  37. Jones and Boyd, The Harvard College Observatory, pp. 384–85.

  38. Charles Henry Davis to Maria Mitchell, January 5, 1851, OBSERVATORY-LOC; U.S. Nautical Almanac for 1852.

  39. Charles Henry Davis to Maria Mitchell, December 24, 1849, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

  40. Charles Henry Davis to Maria Mitchell, December 24, 1849, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

  41. Newcomb, The Reminiscences of an Astronomer, pp. 1, 75.

  42. Charles Henry Davis to Otis E. Kendall, April 24, 1851, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

  43. Charles Henry Davis to William A. Graham, June 19, 1851, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

  44. Charles Henry Davis to the Secretary of the Navy, October 14, 1850, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

  45. Waff, “Navigation vs. Astronomy,” p. 95.

  46. Davis, C. H., Remarks on an American Prime Meridian (1849), p. 12.

  47. Charles Henry Davis to William Preston, July 31, 1849, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

  48. Charles Henry Davis to William Preston, July 31, 1849, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

  49. Davis, C. H., Remarks on an American Prime Meridian (1849), pp. 32, 39.

  50. Budgets for the Nautical Almanac Office, 1850, 1851, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

  51. Comments of John P. Hale, Congressional Globe, n.s., no. 94, 32nd Cong., 1st sess., May 28, 1852, p. 1495.

  52. Ibid.

  53. Comments of George Badger, Congressional Globe, n.s., no. 94, 32nd Cong., 1st sess., May 28, 1852, p. 1495.

  54. Davis, C. H., Report of Lieutenant Charles H. Davis (1852), pp. 7, 8; see also Davis, C. H., “Report on the Nautical Almanac” (1852).

  55. Charles Henry Davis to August W. Smith, November 5, 1850, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

  56. William Mitchell to Joseph Winlock, February 9, 1858, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

  57. American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac (1855–60), Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office.

  58. Davis, C. H., Life of Charles Henry Davis, (1899), pp. 4, 102.

  59. Newcomb, The Reminiscences of an Astronomer, p. 65.

  60. Archibald, “P. G. Scheutz and Edvard Scheutz” (1947).

  61. Gould, Reply to the Statement of the Trustees of the Dudley Observatory (1859), p. 142; James, Elites in Conflict, p. 61.

  62. Gould, Reply to the Statement of the Trustees of the Dudley Observatory (1859), p. 141; see also U.S. Naval Observatory Annual Report for 1858.

  63. Gould, Reply to the Statement of the Trustees of the Dudley Observatory (1859), p. 141; Dudley Observatory Annual Report for 1864, p. 42.

  64. Gould, Reply to the Statement of the Trustees of the Dudley Observatory (1859), p. 141.

  65. U.S. Naval Observatory Annual Report for 1858.

  66. Ibid.

  67. Gould, Reply to the Statement of the Trustees of the Dudley Observatory (1859), p. 221.

  68. U.S. Nautical Almanac for 1859, p. 1.

  69. U.S. Nautical Almanac for 1860.

  70. Ibid.

  71. Herman, A Hilltop in Foggy Bottom, p. 17.

  72. C. H. Davis to his family, June 14, 1861, quoted in Davis, C. H., Life of Charles Henry Davis (1899), p. 121.

  73. C. H. Davis to his family, July 21, 1861, quoted ibid., p. 151.

  74. C. H. Davis to his family, July 21, 1861, quoted ibid.

  75. C. H. Davis to his family, September 18, 1861, quoted ibid., p. 134; Theberge, History of the Commissioned Corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, p. 420.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A CARPET FOR THE COMPUTING ROOM

  1. Newcomb, The Reminiscences of an Astronomer, p. 342.

  2. Davis, C. H., Life of Charles Henry Davis (1899), p. 102.

  3. Lowell, James Russell, “The Present Crisis” (1856).

  4. Davis, The Coast Survey of the United States (1849), p. 21.

  5. “Annual Report of the U.S. Coast Survey for 1844,” p. 29.

  6. Theberge, History of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, pp. 424ff.

  7. See boxes 24–28, Ordnance 1856–1866, DAHLGREN.

  8. Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, p. 120.

  9. Abbe, “Charles Schott.”

  10. Charles Saunders Peirce to Alexander Dallas Bache, August 11, 1862, Correspondence of the Director, COAST-SURVEY.

  11. Annual Report of the U.S. Coast Survey for 1864, pp. 92–93, 222–23.

  12. See, for example, John Dahlgren to Commander Morris, March 1852, Correspondence 1852, DAHLGREN.

  13. An Act to Incorporate the National Academy of Sciences, March 3, 1863.

  14. Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, pp. 141–47.

  15. Quoted in Ebling, “Why Government Entered the Field of Crop Reporting and Forecasting.”

  16. Rasmussen and Baker, The Department of Agriculture, p. 6.

  17. Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1854–1855, pp. 30, 186.

  18. Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1851–1852, p. 168.

  19. Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1856–1857, p. 28; Nebeker, Calculating the Weather, p. 13.

  20. “Statement of the Assistant to the Chief Signal Officer,” in Testimony, pp. 113–30, 114.

  21. Whithan, A History of the United States Weather Bureau, p. 19.

  22. “Examination of Cleveland Abbe,” in Testimony, pp. 247–63, 258.

  23. Bartky, Selling the True Time, p. 33.

  24. Ibid.

  25. Sears Cook Walker; Theberge, History of the Commissioned Corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “The American Method of Longitude Determination,” note 12; Bartky, Selling the True Time, pp. 32ff.

  26. Annual Report of the Harvard Observatory for 1859, p. 5.

  27. Gauss, Theory of the Motion of the Heavenly Bodies.

  28. Davis, C. H., Life of Charles Henry Davis (1899), p. 113.

  29. Annual Report of U.S. Coast Survey for 1872, p. 50.

  30. Annual Report of U.S. Coast Survey for 1868, p. 37.

  31. Jarrold and Fromm, Time—The Great Teacher.

  32. Doolittle obituary, Evening Star.

  33. Ibid.

  34. Ibid.

  35. Annual Report of U.S. Naval Almanac for 1870.

  36. Annual Report of U.S. Coast Survey for 1876, p. 81.

  37. Doolittle obituary, Evening Star.

  38. Charles Schott to Julius Hilgard, January 6, 1874, Report of the Computing Division 1869–1886, COAST-SURVEY.

  39. Aron, “‘To Barter Their Souls for Gold.’”

  40. Rotella, From Home to Office, pp. 15ff., 29.

  41. Arthur Searle to Charles W. Eliot, July 12, 1875, box 68, HARVARD ELIOT.

  42. Jones and Boyd, The Harvard College Observatory, p. 386.

  43. Ibid., “Anna Winlock,” in Ogilvie and Harvey, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, pp. 1388–89.

  44. Arthur Searle to Charles W. Eliot, July 12, 1875, box 68, HARVARD ELIOT.

  45. Mack, “Strategies and Compromises: Women in Astronomy at Harvard College Observatory, 1870–1920.”

  46. Jones and Boyd, The Harvard College Observatory, pp. 386, 387.

  47. Margaret Harwood quoted ibid., p. 390.

  48. Annual Report for Radcliffe, 1879, pp. 6, 14.

  49. Annual Report of the Harvard Observatory for 1898, p. 6.

  50. “Rep
ly to visitors,” U.S. Naval Observatory, 1900, p. 10.

  51. Welther, “Pickering’s Harem.”

  52. “Reply to visitors,” U.S. Naval Observatory, 1900, p. 11.

  53. “Staff listing of the Naval Observatory,” U.S. Naval Observatory, 1901.

  54. Annual Report of the U.S. Coast Survey for 1893, p. 119; Carter, Cook, and Luzum, “The Contributions of Women to the Nautical Almanac Office, the First 150 Years.”

  55. Jones and Boyd, The Harvard College Observatory, p. 189.

  56. Upton, “Observatory Pinafore,” p. 1.

  57. There are two versions of the manuscript. In one, Josephine is treated as a female, though she is clearly one of the male astronomers. In the other, male pronouns have been substituted.

  58. Upton, “Observatory Pinafore,” p. 7.

  59. Ibid., p. 5.

  60. Ibid., p. 3.

  61. Ibid.

  62. Ibid., p. 5.

  63. Ibid., p. 9. The observatory history notes that there were six female computers in 1881 (Jones and Boyd, The Harvard College Observatory, p. 388).

  64. Annual Report of the Harvard Observatory for 1880, p. 16.

  65. Upton, “Observatory Pinafore, p. 16.

  66. Ibid., p. 29.

  CHAPTER SIX

  LOOKING FORWARD, LOOKING BACKWARD

  1. Hopp, Slide Rules.

  2. Logarithm base 10.

  3. Hopp, Slide Rules, Appendix 2, Key Dates in the History of Slide Rules.

  4. Quoted in ibid., Appendix 2.

  5. Ibid.; Riddell, The Slide Rule Simplified.

  6. Williams, A History of Computing Technology, p. 128.

  7. Cortada, Before the Computer, p. 35. See also Kidwell, “The Adding Machine Fraternity at St. Louis: Creating a Center of Invention,” and “‘Yours for improvement’—The Adding Machines of Chicago, 1884–1930.”

  8. Gray, “On the Arithmometer of M. Thomas (de Colmar)”; Johnston, “Making the Arithmometer Count”; Kidwell, “From Novelty to Necessity.”

  9. Jevons, “Remarks on the Statistical Use of the Arithmometer.”

  10. Dreieser, Sister Carrie.

  11. Cortada, Before the Computer, pp. 31ff., 39ff.

  12. U.S. Coast Survey Annual Report for 1890, p. 119.

  13. Austrian, Herman Hollerith, p. 6.

  14. Williams, A History of Computing Technology, pp. 248ff.

  15. Report of a Commission Appointed by the Honorable Superintendent of Census on Different Methods of Tabulating Census Data.

  16. Quoted in Porter, “The Eleventh Census.”