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The article is about Soviet Union's Luna 9 spacecraft

Luna 9


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Gertrude Blanch
My group is choosing to edit the "Gertrude Blanch" article. There is a lot of room for improvement, as most of the information in this article is taken from one source.

Plans to expand on her early life. Also her achievements.

Add more about her later years.

The article is a start class.

Article Draft Additions for Gertrude Blanch
Jennifer S. Light. "When Computers Were Women." Technology and Culture, Jul., 1999, Vol. 40, No. 3 (Jul., 1999), pp. 455-483. The Johns Hopkins University Press and the Society for the History of Technology

D.A. Grier. "Gertrude Blanch of the Mathematical Project." IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. Year: 1997 | Volume: 19, Issue: 4 | Magazine Article | Publisher: IEEE Cited by: Papers (7)

** Excerpts were taken from the original article. Additions made within the excerpt are underlined to help locate, and they are also shown below each section as "Additions from --". **

Peer Review of Gertrude Blanch by Palpatitus (talk) 16:40, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
Early works and education presents a clear picture of the dates and locations where Gertrude Blanch gained her abilities and hints at some motivating sources. Good.

I appreciate the underlining to indicate new content (I presently assume that is it's role), although a key to explain that before I began reading instead of leaving that understanding to the reviewers discretion would have been nice. Overall love it, though.

Some sentences in the career section lack citations. In my opinion, if you drew from the same source for multiple sentences, that's fine, but the citation after each so it's clear where the information is coming from. I now conclude these are from the original article, in which case, try to see if those facts can be verified.

Some more information about who colleagues were and slightly more on the communist suspicion could be good.

I think the article additions are well-placed and of sufficient import.

All in all, a well organized sum of additions.

Response to Peer Review by Palpatitus DVAzfc (talk) 16:31, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
A note about the underlining is directly above where you inserted your review. I tried to make it stand out with the enlarged text and asterisks. I do understand that there are quite a few sentences with no reference attached. There are a few instances where this is due to multiple sentences in a row being from the same source, but after reading your comment about this I realize that I do need to go through the entire article (even the parts not added by me) and add citations. I will do this.

Also, I see your point about adding more information pertaining to her colleagues. I wasn’t sure if it would be appropriate to add, but since her relationship with Arnold Lowan is vital in catapulting her career, I will add a bit more about associations. Thank you for the feedback on this. There was also a lot more to add about the communist suspicions, though it is hard to sort out the relevant information from speculation. I will dive further into this aspect and determine if there are note worthy additions to be made.

Again, thank you for the thoughtful feedback.

Early Years and Education
Blanch attended schools within Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Eastern District High School in 1914. Later that year, Kaimowitz died, so Blanch decided to take a job to support her family. She worked for fourteen years in clerical positions (1914-1928), saving money for school along the way. She became an American citizen in 1921. After her mother died in 1927, Blanch started taking evening classes New York University. In 1932, Blanch received her Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics with a minor in Physics from New York University. That same year, she changed her name from Kaimowitz to Blanch, an Americanized version of her mother's name. She received her Ph.D. from Cornell University in algebraic geometry in 1935.

Additions from Sign77:

Blanch was born on 2 February 1897 as Gittel Kaimowitz in Kolno, Poland to Wolfe Kaimowitz and Dora Blanc. She was the youngest of seven children.

Blanch worked clerical positions for fourteen years (1914-1928), saving money for school along the way. After her mother died in 1927, Blanch started taking evening classes at New York University. In 1932, Blanch received her Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics with a minor in Physics from New York University. She graduated with summa cum laude and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a prestigious academic honor society.

Sign77 (talk) 21:31, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Additions from DVAzfc:

Blanch attended schools within Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Eastern District High School in 1914.

After writing her thesis titled "Properties of the Veneroni Transformation in S4", she received her Ph.D. from Cornell University in algebraic geometry in 1935. The results from her thesis were published in the American Journal of Mathematics in 1937.

DVAzfc (talk) 14:18, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Career
For a year, she worked as a tutor in place of a colleague on leave at Hunter College; then, she worked as a bookkeeper. Blanch met Arnold Lowan while taking an evening course at Brooklyn College. At this time, Lowan extended an invitation to Blanch to join the WPA project, where she was assigned to a supervisory position. In 1938, she began work on the Mathematical Tables Project of the WPA, for which she was "Director of Mathematics" and "Manager of Computation". This entailed designing algorithms that were executed by teams of human computers under her direction. Many of these computers possessed only rudimentary mathematical skills, but the algorithms and error checking in the Mathematical Tables Project were sufficiently well designed that their output defined the standard for transcendental function solution for decades. This project later became the Computation Laboratory of the National Bureau of Standards.

During her last two years at the WPA, she worked as an evening tutor at Brooklyn College. The Mathematical Tables Project became an independent organization following the termination of the WPA at the end of 1942. During World War II, it operated as a major computing office for the US government and did calculations for the Office for Scientific Research and Development, the Army, the Navy, the Manhattan Project and other institutions. Blanch led the group throughout the war.

After the war, Blanch's career was hampered by FBI suspicions that she was secretly a communist. Their evidence for this seems scarce and included, for example, the observation that she had never married or had children, as well as the fact that her sister was affiliated with the Communist Party. In what must have been a remarkable showdown, the diminutive 50-year-old mathematician demanded, and won, a hearing to clear her name.

In 1948 Blanch began work as assistant director for computing at the Institute for Numerical Analysis at UCLA, until switching employment to Electrodata Corporation in 1953. A year later she became a senior mathematician at the Aerospace Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base until her retirement in 1967.

Additions from DVAzfc:

Blanch met Arnold Lowan while taking an evening course at Brooklyn College. At this time, Lowan extended an invitation to Blanch to join the WPA project, where she was assigned to a supervisory position.

During her last two years at the WPA, she worked as an evening tutor at Brooklyn College.

In 1948 Blanch began work as assistant director for computing at the Institute for Numerical Analysis at UCLA, until switching employment to Electrodata Corporation in 1953. A year later she became a senior mathematician at the Aerospace Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base until her retirement in 1967.

DVAzfc (talk) 14:18, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Additions from Sign77:

underlined portion means additions
Blanch was unable to find a job pertaining to her area of study after she graduated with her PhD, due to the Great Depression being in effect at the time. For a year (1935-1936), she worked in place of a colleague on leave at Hunter College; then, she worked another clerical job.

In February 1938, she began work on the Mathematical Tables Project of the Works Project Administration (WPA), for which she was the mathematical director and Chair of the Planning Committee. While the Planning Committee was in operation, it included women other than Blanch such as Ida Rhodes, Jenny Rosenthal, and Irene Stegun. The Planning Committee was in charge of 450 human computers with varying knowledge of mathematics. Sign77 (talk) 01:29, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Blanch's duties entailed designing algorithms that were executed by teams of human computers under her direction.

During World War II, it operated as a major computing office for the US government and did calculations for the Office for Scientific Research and Development, the Army’s map grid, the Navy’s LORAN radio navigation system , the Manhattan Project and other institutions. Blanch led the group throughout the war.

Subsequently, she worked for the Institute for Numerical Analysis at UCLA until June 1954 when it was closed. Later that year, she became a mathematician for the computer division of Consolidated Engineering in Pasadena, California for couple of months until a friend she had made during her time with the Mathematical Tables Project recruited her. She was recruited to be a senior mathematician for the Aerospace Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. The Air Force hired her to work on computations dealing with turbulence, air flow, and transonic and supersonic flight. In 1962, Blanch was promoted to government senior scientist. She was an early member of the ACM. Sign77 (talk) 13:36, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Publications
She published over 30 articles on functional approximation, numerical analysis and Mathieu functions. Between 1940 and 1942, while at the Mathematical Tables Project, several important papers were jointly published with Lowan. In 1962, she was elected a Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1964, she received the Federal Woman's Award, an award for women who had exemplary professional service in the United States Government.
 * The Gertrude Blanch Papers (1932–1996)

Additions from DVAzfc:

Between 1940 and 1942, while at the Mathematical Tables Project, several important papers were jointly published with Lowan, including a project with physicist Hans Bethe which involved complex calculations to determine various properties of stars.
 * Tables of Planck's Radiation and Photon Functions (1940)
 * Error in Hayashi's Table of Bessel Functions for Complex Arguments (1941)
 * On the Inversion of the Q-Series Associated with Jacobian Elliptic Functions (1942)
 * The Internal Temperature Density Distribution of the Sun (1942)

DVAzfc (talk) 14:18, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Honors and awards

 * Air Force Outstanding Performance Award(1958)
 * Federal Woman's Award (1964)
 * Air Force Exceptional Service Award (1963) DVAzfc (talk) 03:58, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1963)
 * Inducted into the Portrait Gallery at the National Institution of Standards and Technology (2017)

Later Years
Blanch retired in 1967 at the age of 69, but through Ohio State University continued working as a consultant for the Air Force until 1970 when Ohio State canceled all military funded contracts.

Peer Review by Matthew Lewis

 * The additions to Early years and education are succinct and clear.
 * I think more could be added in terms of details about her career, maybe brief descriptions of her achievements at these companies or information on why she rapidly changed employment in the late 40's and early 50's.
 * She received three honors and awards in the late 50's and early 60's, some context as to why would be a good improvement, if that information is available.
 * She published many papers in her career, some more context on the importance of them in the realm of mathematics could be added.
 * I think the most important additions to the article would be more context on Gertrude Blanche as a mathematician and her legacy she left.

Response to Peer Review by Matthew Lewis Sign77 (talk) 16:48, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
The amount of reliable resources that we can find don’t go very in depth about parts of her life such as the time she spent at each company or why she received her awards. I will continue searching for more resources that could add to that as it would be very informative about those parts of her life.

I will look into adding more about the effects that Gertrude Blanch had on mathematics by starting with more of her contributions to the Mathematical Tables Project as well as how her papers have affected mathematics.

Thank you for the feedback.