Grace Murray Hopper Collection
- Creator
- Hopper, Grace Murray, 1906-1992
- Former owner
- National Museum of American History (U.S.). Division of Physical Sciences
- Names
- Remington Rand.
- Occupation
- Computer programmers
- Topic
- Computers
- Computer programming
- Computers and women
- Mathematicians
- Systems engineering
- Univac computer
- Provenance
- Grace Murray Hopper donated her materials to the National Museum of American History, Section of Mathematics in 1967 and 1968. The majority of the collection was donated through the Museum's Computer Oral History Project in 1972.
- Creator
- Hopper, Grace Murray, 1906-1992
- See more items in
- Grace Murray Hopper Collection
- Summary
- Papers and photographs of Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992) computer and Naval pioneer.
- Accruals
- 3 reels of film titled "Standardization of Computer Languages, Some Implications for the U.S. Navy," 1968, were added to the collection in May 2022. The films were transferred from the Division of Medicine and Science to the Archives Center. The immediate source of acquisition is unknown. An accession number was not assigned by the division. 3 boxes of materials (1 cubic foot) was transferred from the Division of Medicine and Science to the Archives Center in October 2022. The immediate source of acquistion is Grace Murray Hopper, presumably in 1984. An accession number was not assigned by the division.
- Biographical / Historical
- Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992) obtained her Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale University in 1934. She was an associate professor of mathematics at Vassar College when she joined the Women's Reserve of the United States Navy, Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) in 1944 and was assigned to the computing project at Harvard University. She served under Commander Howard H. Aiken as a Wave until 1946, and remained at Harvard's Computation Laboratory as a research fellow until 1949. In that year she joined the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation as a senior mathematician. When Eckert-Mauchly became a division of Remington Rand, Hopper remained as senior programmer, a title she retained until 1959. Subsequently, she served as systems engineer and director of automatic programming development (1959-1964) and staff scientist in systems programming (1964-1971) for the UNIVAC division of Sperry Rand Corporation. Hopper retired from UNIVAC in 1972, having returned to active service in the U.S. Navy from which she eventually retired with the rank of Rear Admiral. In 2016, President Obama posthumously awarded Rear Adm. Hopper the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Nation's highest civilian honor, awarded to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interest of the U.S. for her remarkable influence on the field of computer science.
- Extent
- 2.5 Cubic feet (9 boxes, 1 map-folder)
- Date
- 1944-1967
- Custodial History
- Collection transferred from the Division of Physical Sciences (now Division of Medicine and Science) to the Archives Center, February 6, 1989.
- Archival Repository
- Archives Center, National Museum of American History
- Identifier
- NMAH.AC.0324
- Type
- Collection descriptions
- Archival materials
- Articles
- Photographs
- 16mm films
- Technical notes
- Videotapes
- Citation
- Grace Murray Hopper Collection, 1944-1965, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
- Arrangement
- The collection is divided into twelve series. Series 1: Technical Documents, 1944-1949 Series 2: Photographs of Mark II, 1948 Series 3: Photographs at Harvard, 1944-1945 Series 4: Reports and Articles, 1946-1948 Series 5: Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, 1949-1965 Series 6: Compiling Routines, 1952-1954 Series 7: Press Clippings, 1944-1953 Series 8: Periodicals and Brochures, 1950-1953 Series 9: Humor file, 1944-1953 Series 10: Machine Tape, undated Series 11: Audiovisual Materials, undated Series 12: Addenda, 1949-1967
- Processing Information
- Collection processed by Don Darroch, 1990. Addenda processed by Alison Oswald, archivist, 2022.
- Rights
- Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
- Genre/Form
- Articles -- 20th century
- Photographs -- 20th century
- 16mm films
- Technical notes
- Videotapes
- Scope and Contents
- The material includes technical notes, operating instructions and descriptions relating to projects which Hopper participated in at Harvard during and after World War II and later in the private sector. These projects involved the creation of the Navy's Mark I, II and III "mechanical calculators" (the fore runners of today's computers) and the UNIVAC and ENIAC civilian models. The photographs document both equipment and Hopper with her colleagues at work and on social occasions. There are numerous published articles and memoranda by Hopper and others on various technical aspects of computers. Clippings of newspaper and magazine articles relating to computers and their development are also included, as well as periodicals and brochures. A "humor file" contains jokes and anecdotes collected by Hopper. Much of the material is annotated by Hopper, primarily through notations on 3 x 5 white slips of paper. Some of the annotations by Elizabeth Luebbert, who served as a summer research assistant in the Museum's Computer History Project.
- Restrictions
- Collection is open for research.
