Proving Ground review: the women who made American computing great

Kathy Kleiman's offers a valuable boost to our understanding of modern computers and their beginnings in wartime

In 1942, the unthinkable happened. This help wanted" ad appeared in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin: Looking for Women Math Majors."

The ad was placed by the US army, which was hiring women to work at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering, at the University of Pennsylvania. Kathleen McNulty was only 21, a brand new graduate of Chestnut Hill College, but she knew nothing like this had ever appeared outside the Male Help Wanted" section of any newspaper before the US entered the second world war.