Above: This image is from the report, The Emergency Work Relief Program of the F.E.R.A., April 1, 1934 to July 1, 1935, p. 23, and a full description of this groundbreaking differential analyzer can be found on pp. 25-26 (available on Hathitrust here).
Above: Part of an article from The Daily Item (Sunbury, Pennsylvania), April 4, 1934, p. 10. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.
The New Deal's Computer-Makers
In 1934, with leftover funds from the Civil Works Administration (CWA), and many skilled relief workers in the newly-formed Work Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania created a "differential analyzer" - an early, giant-sized, mechanical computer. At the time, engineers said "the differential analyzer can do in 10 minutes the work that would take a dozen expert mathematicians a week to complete" ("Three Ton Machine Will Think For 12 Experts," United Press article, in the Chillicothe Constitution-Tribune (Chillicothe, Missouri), July 16, 1934, p. 4).
"In 1935 the Moore School completed the Differential Analyzer – the world’s largest mechanical computation machine. The reliability of the Analyzer resulted in contract work for various University departments, private companies, and government agencies. In the early 1940s the Army Ballistic Research Laboratory contracted the Differential Analyzer to calculate artillery firing tables. From this work came the contract for the school to design and construct ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) in 1943. The Moore School would go on to design EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) in 1946 and MSAC (Moore School Automatic Computer) in 1950."
And the University of Pennsylvania Engineering Department points out that ENIAC (which the New Deal-funded differential analyzer led to), "was the first general-purpose electronic computer... Today, it is difficult to imagine how we could manage without the myriad electronic devices that we utilize each day. From our smartphones, touch screens, and tiny cameras to our automobiles, airplanes and medical equipment and devices, electronics is the engine driving us forward. And it was here at the University of Pennsylvania that it all began."
Isn't it ironic that so many Americans, today, furiously type out--on their computer keyboards & smartphone keypads--all manner of insults directed at the poor and the unemployed... and all manner of warnings about the "evils" of progressive ideas and government... without the slightest knowledge that it was the poor, the unemployed, and progressive ideas and government (i.e., the New Deal) that paved the way for their ability to type out such foolishness?
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