LEANN ERICKSON’S TOP SECRET ROSIES (2011) AND THE COMPUTER WORE HEELS: THE FEMALE MATHEMATICIANS OF WORLD WAR II (2014)—A TRANSMEDIA REFRAMING OF DOCUMENTARY AUDIENCE AND PURPOSE

Abstract

TOP SECRET ROSIES (2011) AND THE COMPUTER WORE HEELS: THE FEMALE MATHEMATICIANS OF WORLD WAR II (2014)Although it has been used by the commercial film and television industries for many years, transmedia has been embraced by documentary film- and media-makers relatively recently. By employing multiple forms, media-makers are exploring new ways to deliver their stories to different audiences. One such path is that employed by LeAnn Erickson with the story that is the subject of Top Secret Rosies (2011), her documentary about the female "computers" of World War II, and The Computer Wore Heels: The Female Mathematicians of World War II (2014), an iPad e-book. Whereas Rosies is a more traditional feature-length documentary, it has been reimagined in Heels as a teaching tool for middle-school audiences. At a time when STEM education has taken such a pivotal role in children's education in the United States, this reframing of the story material is especially timely.The role of working women during World War II has historically been represented by Rosie the Riveter, that image of a stern-faced but beautiful woman flexing her muscles, hair tucked sensibly into a red polka-dot bandana, topped by the caption, "We Can Do It!" Much has been made of the women who worked in factories during World War II, producing aircraft, munitions, and other war supplies. The story behind Top Secret Rosies and The Computer Wore Heels, however, is one that is still relatively unknown. These works chronicle the wartime efforts of several of the thousands of women who, because of their considerable skills in mathematics, were recruited by the army to function as human "computers," solving the thousands upon thousands of complex mathematical calculations that went into the creation of tables of ballistics trajectories during World War II. These tables were used for the accurate deployment of ordnance by tanks, heavy artillery, and bomber aircraft. The women whose lives Erickson documents were very young, in their late teens and early twenties, when they went to work on this top-secret mission to help win the war. Jennings went on to become one of the initial programmers for ENIAC, the world's first electronic general-purpose computer. Although their accomplishments have largely been elided from history, Top Secret Rosies and The Computer Wore Heels tell their story.Both the documentary and the e-book begin with a diary entry: "11:55 a.m., Sept. 5, 1944. The porter probably thinks I have made at least twenty trips across the country before, because I am acting as though I'm a woman of the world." In the documentary, we learn through voice-over that the diary is that of a very young Doris Blumberg, who is on a five-day journey from Philadelphia to the Monroe Army Base in California. She has been recruited by the US Army to work on a top-secret project intended to perfect aerial bombing. We shortly learn that Doris has a twin sister, Shirley, who has also become an army mathematician, working at the Moore School of Engineering, back home at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia.The e-book may begin with the same diary entry, but in characteristically transmedia fashion, it represents a different point of entry into the story. In the documentary, the story is being told by women who at the time of filming were in their eighties, recounting experiences from very long ago. In the e-book, the diary excerpt serves as a flash-forward; Erickson then takes the audience back several years, to when Doris and her twin sister Shirley were seniors in an all-girls high school in Philadelphia and members of the math club. They are set to graduate only a handful of months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Anxious to help with the war effort, they are informed just before graduation that their principal, in response to an army recruitment letter, has recommended them for a secret army project. Upon graduation, they are to report immediately to the Moore School on the University of Philadelphia campus. …