Badge from Cruft Laboratory of Harvard University

This metal badge reads "Cruft Laboratory, Staff No. 62, Harvard University", and was donated to the Smithsonian by Grace Murray Hopper (1906–1992). Hopper had joined the United States Naval Reserves in December 1943 and attended the Naval Reserve Midshipman’s School for Women through June 1944. She was then posted to the U.S. Navy’s Computation project that was housed at the Cruft Laboratory.

Hopper had a PhD in mathematics (Yale 1934) and her assignment was to write computer code for the Mark I computer, formally known as the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator. Hopper continued working at the Harvard Computational Laboratory until 1949 although she, along with other women in the Naval Reserve, had been released from active duty in 1946.

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