Gertrude Blanch

Born Gittel Kaimowitz in Kolno, then Russian Poland, and brought to the United States in 1907. Her father's death ended her schooling, and she spent fourteen years as an office clerk while studying at night. A bachelor's degree came in 1932 and a Cornell doctorate in algebraic geometry in 1935, at thirty-eight. Three years after that she took mathematical charge of the Mathematical Tables Project.

The work consisted of breaking hard functions into chains of single additions that untrained staff could execute without understanding them, and building error detection into the scheme itself. That is programming, with people as the execution unit, a decade before the job existed. In 1952 she was investigated for disloyalty — the suspicions rested partly on her being unmarried and childless and on a sister being a communist. She demanded an open hearing and was cleared. Afterwards came Mathieu functions at UCLA, Air Force research at Wright-Patterson, and the Federal Woman's Award in 1964. She died at 98.