Big computers, big hair: the women of Bell Labs in the 1960s – in pictures
In 1967, Lawrence ‘Larry’ Luckham was an operations manager at Bell Labs in Oakland, California. He brought a camera into work to capture a day in the life at a company churning out some of the biggest technological advances of the decade
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“This is Bea, a computer operations supervisor. She was the smartest of the bunch.”
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“I hired Helen, a computer operator and tape librarian, based on a recommendation from another woman in the office.”
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“These are senior computer operators Rosie (left) and Francine. They worked together on swing shifts.”
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“Bea made the decoration behind her desk: I bought the materials and they made their own artwork.”
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“Yvonne, a smart single mom, was one of the data centre’s three computer operations supervisors.”
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“This was the data terminal test room: the prototypes were state of the art at the time.”
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“This was a large IBM mainframe computer: 1MB of memory, 648MB of hard drives, no video, and it was worth millions of dollars!”
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“Bea, pictured in the tape library.”
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“This is Roxanne, my secretary. She was absolutely great!”
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“Barbara, a soft-spoken newlywed when I hired her, standing next to an office decoration she made.”
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“A computer operator standing next to a disk pack. I’m afraid I can’t remember her name.”
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“She was a coding clerk and key punch operator in the data control unit.”
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