Index

Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Britain’s Computer “Revolution” 1

1 War Machines: Women’s Computing Work and the Underpinnings
of the Data-Driven State, 1930–1946 19

2 Data Processing in Peacetime: Institutionalizing a Feminized
Machine Underclass, 1946–1955 59

3 Luck and Labor Shortage: Gender Flux, Professionalization, and
Growing Opportunities for Computer Workers, 1955–1967 99

4 The Rise of the Technocrat: How State Attempts to Centralize
Power through Computing Went Astray, 1965–1969 149

5 The End of White Heat and the Failure of British Technocracy,
1969–1979 189

Conclusion: Reassembling the History of Computing around Gender’s
Formative Inf uence 225

Appendix 241
Notes 245
Bibliography 295
Index 331