Exploring the Archives:
Resources on the Labor History of Computing
The following article is the fifth in a series highlighting materials in the CBI collections. The topics in this series have been chosen both for their historical significance as well as to call attention to materials/collections that may not be known to the research community.
Most historical literature on computing has focused on the production of computers and software. Far fewer studies have addressed the use of these technologies. Even within this “supply-side” focus, there has been much unexamined terrain. In addition to particular technologies yet to be explored, there is the vast topic of manufacturing. Design and development have long dominated historical discourse, while research on manufacturing, assembling, and quality control for computers and components has been virtually absent. This bias is understandable in examining the first decade of digital computing (mid-1940s to mid-1950s), when one-of-a-kind machines and systems in very low volume defined the field. It is far less defendable, however, in looking at the early to mid-1960s forward—when systems such as the IBM 1401 and IBM System/360 were produced in the thousands.
This focus on the designers of systems, among other things, has impeded the development of the labor history of computing—narratives and analyses of workers building and assembling machines and components; the programmers of systems and applications software; services employees and contractors; and the immense number of IT organizational users, whose work depends on computers and software as tools of production. Historians William Aspray, Nathan Ensmenger, and Thomas Haigh made some important strides toward more fully understanding programming as a profession and the computer/data processing departments of firms/organizations in the 1950s through the 1970s [see IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 23:4 (2001) and Hashagen, Keil-Slawik, and Norberg, eds. History of Computing: Software Issues (Springer, 2002)]. Nevertheless, far more research is needed in these areas, as well as on countless other topics and themes in the labor history of computing, software, and networking.
Prior to the 1960s, labor history concentrated primarily on institutions—unions, working class and socialist political parties, etc. Labor historians commonly studied strikes, lockouts, industrial relations, elections, and other developments, and the field was closely tied to the broader discipline of political history (power relations and struggles between the leaders of recognized groups and organizations). In the 1960s, the work of E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (1963), and others, helped transform and broaden labor history to include greater attention to the lives and struggles of workers. In time, this extended to path breaking studies of women workers [e.g. Christine Stansell, City of Women (1987)], African-American workers [e.g. Jacqueline Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow (1986)], and studies of the cultural history of labor and workers’ worlds [e.g. John Bodnar, Workers World: Kinship, Community and Protest in an Industrial Society, 1900-1940 (1982); Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, et al., Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World (1987)]. With this changing focus, labor history emerged as a core of social history.
There are numerous challenges to researching and writing the labor history of computing and software. Unions and organized labor have been less prevalent in computing and software than many other industries (such as steel, automobiles, textiles, retail, and education). Thus, more traditional labor histories (focused on struggles for power between competing groups/organizations) often are not possible. Meanwhile, most archival collections on computing (and many other technologies) concentrate on the design and development of systems. In particular, there is a tremendous shortage of primary and secondary material to study the lives of individual workers and work culture.
Despite these challenges, there are some important publicly available archival materials for researching certain topics and themes in the labor history of computing. A substantial portion of these resources are housed at the Charles Babbage Institute. One critical tool for augmenting these collections and opening up new possibilities is conducting and using oral histories. While numerous oral histories exist on computer and software history (at CBI, the IEEE History Center, the Computer History Museum, etc.), most are with top executives at companies, lead engineers on projects, or prominent computer scientists. Capturing the memories, insights, and perspectives of individual workers through oral history remains an important, unrealized opportunity for individual researchers and organizations/repositories.
What follows is a brief sampling and discussion of some collections and types of resources at the Charles Babbage Institute to facilitate research on the labor history of computers and software.
CBI’s large corporate collections, particularly Burroughs and Control Data, contain a wealth of underutilized resources for understanding aspects of labor history. While these large collections are predominantly focused on the design and development of systems, and decisions of senior management, some resources provide information on workers and labor relations (albeit, generally from management’s perspective). These include in-house publications, clipping files, etc.
The CDC Corporate records and papers of its longtime leader, William Norris, provide much information about Norris’s and CDC’s programs to locate plants in depressed areas (such as north Minneapolis) and to hire and train at-risk workers—ex-convicts, individuals with little education, or those with poor work histories. Here the rhetoric of the speeches and writings of Norris and other executives could be analyzed in relation to data collected from conducting oral histories with individuals who worked at these CDC facilities.
Another important topic in labor history is gaining understanding of opportunities for job and career advancement, and the training and education programs that facilitate upward mobility. Control Data Corporation formed Control Data Institute to advance training within the organization. The Control Data Corporate records contain significant material on Control Data Institute.
The Burroughs collection has a particularly strong set of materials on “salesmen,” most importantly, a sub-series of records entitled “Salemen’s Papers, 1910-1985.” Complementing this rich, small collection are sales manuals and sales training literature. Some questions researchers might ask of these records are: Was there a typical type of individual recruited or hired for sales at Burroughs? What technical training was the sales force given? What sales techniques were taught? Did sales personnel frequently transition from pre-computing accounting machines to selling Burroughs digital computers? What challenges were there to such a transition?
Another extremely important collection to study the white-collar labor of computing is the Data Processing Management Association Records (DPMA), 1950-1993. The DPMA began in 1949 as the National Machine Accountants Association (NMAA), and roughly a decade later changed its name to DPMA—to reflect the prevalence of digital computing technology and the growing number of computer users outside the areas of accounting and finance. One of the early and continuing aims of this organization was promoting education and professionalism. As computing became ever more prevalent, the DPMA became increasingly engaged in efforts to define and certify data processing professionals. The DPMA developed the first Certificate in Data Processing (CDP) and a corresponding certification exam in 1962. A half dozen years later, it augmented the CDP with testing and certification for Registered Business Programmers (RBP). Both certificate programs, and other materials related to professional identity and status of data processing workers and managers, are well documented in this sizable collection (41 cubic feet).
Complementing the certification materials in the DPMA records is CBI’s “Institute for Certification of Computer Professionals [ICCP] Records.” The ICCP was formed in 1973 by eight organizations including the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society (CS), and the DPMA. The records (including correspondence, meeting minutes, press releases, memoranda, reports, etc.) contain information on the CDP and RBP, as well as the Certificate in Computer Processing (CCP) and Certified Systems Professional (CSP).
The U.S. government has produced many reports of labor statistics and analyses of labor trends. These include standard serial reports as well as reports on particular issues of public or policy interest. The United States National Bureau of Standards collected countless reports (government and non-government) on computing for several decades and donated these records to CBI. Our collection includes many standard statistical labor reports, in addition to numerous reports studying computer automation of office and industrial work, particularly from the 1960s and 1970s. Government labor reports can also be found in CBI’s United States Government Computing Collection and the James W. Cortada papers.
In addition to these processed, publicly available archival collections at CBI, we also have a rapidly growing collection of books and ephemera. Among the areas CBI archivist Arvid Nelsen has targeted for collection development are books, articles, and pamphlets on underrepresented or marginalized groups in the history of computing. This includes some publications on computing and labor, and specific works on the issue of computer automation. A few examples are Harley Shaiken, “Numerical Control of Work: Workers and Automation in the Computer Age,” Radical America 13:6 (1979): 25-38; Warner Bloomberg, The Age of Automation: Its Effects on Human Welfare (1955); and CSE Microelectronics Group, Microelectronics: Capitalist Technology and the Working Class (1980).
Researchers are also encouraged to look at CBI’s collection of oral histories as source material for labor history. While most of the oral histories are with executives and high-level engineers and computer scientists, some of these individuals rose through the ranks and in the interviews detail work experiences at lower echelons of corporations/organizations. Four recent interviews with women entrepreneurs (two of which have already been added to the online oral history database—Grace Gentry and Luanne Johnson) not only provide information on their entrepreneurial activities and leadership, but also their prior work as programmers for companies or government entities. Gentry’s oral history also provides extensive information on the independent contractor services worker—a category that blurs the distinction between entrepreneur and laborer. In the future, there will hopefully be far more interviews with programmers and computer workers of varying types and at different levels—extending the possibilities for ever richer labor histories to be researched and written.
The IEEE Annals of the History of Computing has recently announced a special/theme issue on the labor history of computing and software. The deadline for article submissions to this issue is January 31, 2010. If you are interested in submitting an article for consideration for this issue, please contact me as soon as possible at <yostx003@umn.edu>.