The original caption, she says, reads: Here, Margaret is shown standing beside listings of the software developed by her and the team she was in charge of, the LM [lunar module] and CM [command module] on-board flight software team.. is 5'(1.52m) . In 1986 Margaret founded the company Hamilton Technologies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. However, once there, she preferred to accept work at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), as a software developer. She became very concerned about the role's effect on children, and finally did a guest spot on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1968) to explain that the Witch was just a character in the film, and not herself. , money, salary, income, and assets. She notably wrote software for a program to identify enemy aircraft. Margaret Hamilton was born December 9, 1902 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Jennie (Adams) and Walter Hamilton. A few years later, they were reunited on Broadway for the short-lived musical Come Summer. This depended on our assigning a unique priority to every process in the software in order to ensure that all of its events would take place in the correct order and at the right time relative to everything else that was going on. It was an ongoing joke for a long time. Hamilton was the recipient of various honours, including NASAs Exceptional Space Act Award (2003). Hamilton has published more than 130 papers, proceedings, and reports, about sixty projects, and six major programs. Social Media Lead: (Apollo 13 aborted before landing due to an explosion in the command module's service area.). Required fields are marked *. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. Hamilton left MIT in the mid-1970s to work in the private sector. She also wrote a program for the Cambridge Air Force Research Laboratory. In a few seconds he had to decide whether to land on the moon despite the risk or abort the landing and return with the honey on his lips. Mutual respect was across the board. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. Pufnstuf herself being spoofed by actress Billie Hayes. Quote her most famous line, however, and watch their eyes blink awake with recognition: "I'll get you my pretty! With only minutes to spare, the decision was made to go for the landing.". In those years, there were no programming languages like at the end of the 20th century. She later attended Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and practiced acting doing children's theater while a Junior League of Cleveland member. In the early 1970s, she joined the cast of another CBS soap opera, As the World Turns, on which she played Miss Peterson, Simon Gilbey's assistant. (Revised December 29, 2004). She grew up during a time when very few women studied computer science, but Hamilton knew she wanted to write code. Credit: Courtesy MIT Museum Margaret Hamilton's Apollo Code A brief history of the famous 1969 photo of the software that sent humans to the Moon. She was severely burned during the "Surrender Dorothy!" By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. She is one of the people credited with coining the term "software engineering". Biography. From 1961 to 1963, Hamilton worked on the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) Project at the MIT Lincoln Lab,[14] where she was one of the programmers who wrote software for the prototype AN/FSQ-7 computer (the XD-1), used by the U.S. Air Force to search for possibly unfriendly aircraft. and they continued. five.[28]. Daneman's nephew refused to meet Hamilton because even though he understood she was an actress, he thought it was still possible she really was like the character in the movie. When she reprised her role as the Wicked Witch in a 1976 episode of Sesame Street, "the show's producers were flooded with letters from parents saying it was too frightening for children. Phil Davis [4] However, in mid-1959, Hamilton began working for Edward Norton Lorenz, in the meteorology department at MIT. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. A brief history of the famous 1969 photo of the software that sent humans to the Moon. [36], When Hamilton started using the term "software engineering" during the early Apollo missions,[57] software development was not taken seriously compared to other engineering,[58] nor was it regarded as a science. ", /system/people/detail_images/320_Margaret_Hamilton.jpg, /system/people/list_images/320_Margaret_Hamilton_320.jpg. Hamilton led the software engineering division at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Instrumentation Laboratory. Her family later moved to Michigan and Hamilton attended the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, for a time. For her work, she was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. With the intention of pursuing graduate studies, Margaret moved to Massachusetts. What are the Van Allen Belts and why do they matter? "Every time the CPU approached overload, the software cleared out its entire queue of processes, restarted its functions; allowing only the highest priority ones to perform until the landing was completed," she said. [23] This included error detection and recovery software such as restarts and the Display Interface Routines (also known as the Priority Displays), which Hamilton designed and developed. Hamilton and Morgan never share any scenes in Oz. It meant that if Aldrin, say, hit a button on the priority display too quickly, he might still get a "normal" response. Only co-star Frank Morgan played more roles (five) in the film. Hamilton's plain looks helped to bring steady work as a character actress. Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features. Margaret Hamilton had no trouble reconciling her career at NASA with her mothering role. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). She strove to work as much as possible to support herself and her son; she never put herself under contract to any one studio and priced her services at $1,000 ($18,800 with inflation[4]) a week.[5]. The couple then moved to Boston. Besides her work in Apollo, she was part of MIT Lincoln Laboratory's Semi-Automatic Ground Environment Air Defense System, or SAGE. Soon after, Neil Armstrong radioed the expected message to Houston: The Eagle has landed, The Eagle has landed. We had to find a way and we did. Discover today's celebrity birthdays and explore famous people who share your birthday. After graduating in 1958, she taught high-school mathematics for a short time. Learn How rich is She in this year and how She spends money? In the 1940s and 1950s, Hamilton had a long-running role on the radio series Ethel and Albert (or The Couple Next Door) in which she played the lovable, scattered Aunt Eva (name later changed to Aunt Effie). Related: Apollo Coder and 'Apollo 13' Actor Receive Presidential Medals of Freedom, SpaceX scrubs Crew-6 astronaut launch due to ignition-fluid issue, Experience SpaceX's Crew-6 astronaut mission with these amazing photos, DNA from 4 American presidents will launch to deep space, Asteroid Ryugu is rich in organic molecules that can be building blocks of life, On This Day In Space: Feb. 26, 1966: 1st launch of Saturn 1B rocket, Your monthly guide to stargazing & space science, Subscribe today and save an extra 5% with code 'LOVE5', Issues delivered straight to your door or device. In this famous MIT lab, her team developed the navigation software for the Apollo Space Program. Would spoof her famous role of The Wicked Witch of The West in a 1976 Paul Lynde Halloween Special for television. [10] She says her poet father and headmaster grandfather inspired her to include a minor in philosophy in her studies. However, in By Your Leave (1934), she plays his housekeeper, and in Saratoga (1937), she has a colloquy with Morgan regarding a cosmetic product he invented (with side glances and eye rolls by Morgan as to its effect on her "beauty"). Coming up with solutions and new ideas was an adventure. The on-board flight software captured these alarms with the "never supposed to happen displays" interrupting the astronauts with priority alarm displays. [22][16] Another part of her team designed and developed the systems software. New York, In 1954, she graduated from Thomas Hancock High School in Minnesota. As Neil Armstrong was already preparing to bring the ship down, the computer started displaying two errors: error 1201 and error 1202. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. In 1945, she played the domineering sister of Oz co-star Jack Haley in George White's Scandals, comically trying to prevent him from marrying actress Joan Davis, even going so far as to throw a hatchet at her. Her son, interviewed for the 2005 DVD edition of the film, commented that Hamilton enjoyed the line so much, she sometimes used it in her real life. In 2009, Margaret Hamilton and fellow MIT software engineers described what is was like to contribute to the Apollo missions 40 years after the famous Apollo 11 landing in the Moon's Sea of Tranquility in July 1969. The character is considered to be one of the screen's greatest and most memorable villains of all time. Elizabeth first got interested in space after watching the movie Apollo 13 in 1996, and still wants to be an astronaut someday. [4] They divorced in 1967 and Margaret married Dan Lickly two years later.[80][82]. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Computer scientist Margaret Hamilton poses for a series of photos with the Apollo guidance software she and her team developed at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory. The company was developed around the Universal Systems Language (USL) and its associated automated environment, the 001 Tool Suite, based on her paradigm of development before the fact for systems design and software development.[32][51][52]. Everything was done based on codes, so that they did not occupy too much space in the small memories of the computers, which were NOT made of silicon, but were housed in iron cores. Armstrong had no time for lengthy explanations. She was born on August 17, 1936, which makes Margaret Hamilton age be 82 years old as of now. Later in the decade, she was in a little-known film noir, titled Bungalow 13 (1948), in which she again costarred opposite Cromwell. Hamilton made her debut as a "professional entertainer" on December 9, 1929, in a "program of 'heart rending songs'" in the Charles S. Brooks Theater at the Cleveland Play House. The man had reached the Moon. Corrections? She spent 11 days in hospital and her legs were permanently scarred. She subsequently directed and supervised the developments of the Skylab space station mission. We had to find a way and we did. She was best known for her portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West, and her Kansas counterpart Almira Gulch, in the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film The Wizard of Oz.A former schoolteacher, she worked as a character actress in . It was July 20, 1969. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Although Margaret planned to study abstract mathematics at Brandeis University, she accepted a job at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) while her husband attended Harvard Law School. Having started on the stage in the early 1930s, she began to work extensively in the theater after leaving Los Angeles. A former schoolteacher, she worked as a character actress in films for seven years before she was offered the role that defined her public image. was ranked 99th in the 2005 American Film Institute survey of the most memorable movie quotes. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. We have estimated Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 1958. [54][60] The IEEE Software September/October 2018 issue celebrates the 50th anniversary of software engineering. CAPE ISLAND Tour boat operators sometimes entertained their passengers by referring to Cape Island as "Witch's Island." That's because the primary resident there, during summers from 1961 to 1985, was Margaret Hamilton, the actor who played the Wicked Witch of the West and Elmira Gulch in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.. There was no second chance. 2003 Annual Report of the NASA Inventions and Contributions Board, 2003. "Hamilton contributed to concepts of asynchronous software, priority scheduling and priority displays, and human-in-the-loop decision capability, which set the foundation for modern, ultra-reliable software design and engineering," the citation for her medal read. We knew that. "Margaret Hamilton, 82, Dies; Played Wicked Witch In 'Oz', "Ah, The Songs of Long Ago! Hamilton played two credited roles in the famous film: Almira Gulch and the Wicked Witch of the West. She soon transferred, however, to Earlham College in Indiana where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in mathematics, with a minor in philosophy. By Maia Weinstock | MIT News Office Hamilton had prepared for just this situation years before: There was one other failsafe that Hamilton likes to remember. In 1960, producer/director William Castle cast Hamilton as a housekeeper in his 13 Ghosts horror film, in which 12-year-old lead Charles Herbert's character taunts her about being a witch, including the final scene, in which she is holding a broom in her hand. [7] Studio executives cut some of Hamilton's more frightening scenes, worrying they would frighten children too much. She had a small role in the made-for-television film The Night Strangler (1973) and appeared as a befuddled neighbor on Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, who is a friend of the very similar Mary Wickes. DAAAE30-02-D-1020 and DAAB07-98-D-H502/0180, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ, 20032004. I guess for a minute they get the feeling they got when they watched the picture. Had one child, son, Hamilton Wadsworth Meserve, on June 12, 1936. Hat, Coat and Glove. Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! She portrayed the sister of Witchiepoo from H.R. 1967) {Ex-Husband}, Your email address will not be published. [17], It was her efforts on this project that made her a candidate for the position at NASA as the lead developer for Apollo flight software. "From my own perspective, the software experience itself (designing it, developing it, evolving it, watching it perform and learning from it for future systems) was at least as exciting as the events surrounding the mission," she said. [4], Hamilton then joined the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory at MIT, which worked on the Apollo Space Mission. [16][18] These made her code incredibly reliable because they helped programmers identify and fix anomalies before they became major problems.[26]. [4][5] The family later moved to Michigan,[6] where Margaret graduated from Hancock High School in 1954. Dedication and commitment were a given. A former schoolteacher, she worked as a character actor in films for seven years before she was offered the role that defined her public image. Also learn how She earned most of Margaret Hamilton networth? [37] Jack Garman, a NASA computer engineer in mission control, recognized the meaning of the errors that were presented to the astronauts by the priority displays and shouted, "Go, go!" [81][14] The couple then moved to Boston, Massachusetts,[14] where they had a daughter, Lauren, born on November 10, 1959. She later founded two software companiesHigher Order Software in 1976 and Hamilton Technologies in 1986, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We have a full Biography, Photos, Theatre Credits, and more! Later in life, she would comment on the role of the witch in a light-hearted fashion. At 83 years old, Margaret Hamilton height "[13] She appeared as herself in three episodes of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, between 1975 and 1976, because Fred Rogers wanted his viewers to recognize the Wicked Witch was just a character and not something to be afraid of. Looking back, we were the luckiest people in the world; there was no choice but to be pioneers. Margaret Hamilton (educator) (1871-1969), American educator Margaret Hamilton (actress) (1902-1985), American film character actress Margaret Hamilton (software engineer) (born 1936), American software engineer Margaret Hamilton (publisher) (1941-2022), Australian publisher of children's literature Her other mid-1970s stage productions, as the producer, were The Three Sisters and House Party.[where? Biography of Margaret Hamilton, American Computer Scientist, Biography of Elizabeth Barrett, British poet, Biography of Ursula von der Leyen, German politician, Biography of Isabel Zendal, Spanish nurse, Biography of Sheila Herrero, Spanish athlete, Biography of Genoveva Torres, Spanish religious. margaret-hamilton-bio-wiki-age-family-net-worth-height-nationality-and-facts.html. While her acting career developed, her marriage began to fail; the couple divorced in 1938. In 1976, Hamilton co-founded with Saydean Zeldin a company called Higher Order Software (HOS)[40] to further develop ideas about error prevention and fault tolerance emerging from their experience at MIT working on the Apollo program. She knew everything about these vital programs. "Hamilton was honored by NASA in 2003, when she was presented a special award recognizing the value of her innovations in the Apollo software development," NASA wrote in 2016. They're scared. The content of the programs was printed on continuous paper and stored in large folders. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Hamilton never remarried. Coming up with solutions and new ideas was an adventure. skywriting sequence at the Emerald City. And it was at the age of 22 that she graduated from Earlham . It even printed out its answers in Latin and Greek. By some accounts, the astronauts had inadvertently left the rendezvous radar switch on, causing these alarms to be triggered (the claim that the radar was left on inadvertently by the astronauts is disputed by Robert Wills with the National Museum of Computing[29]). UConnToday, 23 April 2013. President Barack Obama presents Apollo code developer Margaret Hamilton (at left) and "Apollo 13" actor Tom Hanks (right) with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Nov. 22, 2016. And there's always a funny reaction, like 'Ye gods, they wish they hadn't asked.' According to Hamilton, this now-iconic image (at left, above) was taken at MIT in 1969 by a staff photographer for the Instrumentation Laboratory later named the Draper Laboratory and today an independent organization for use in promotion of the labs work on the Apollo project. Margaret Heafield Hamilton (born Heafield on August 17, 1936) is an American computer scientist, systems engineer, and business owner.She is credited with coining the term, "software engineering".Hamilton was Director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which developed on-board flight software for the Apollo space program. At MIT she began programming software to predict the weather and did postgraduate work in meteorology. By Maia Weinstock | MIT News Office For ABC's short-lived radio anthology Theatre-Five, she played a manipulative ailing Aunt Lettie to Joan Lorring as the unhappy niece Maude in "Noose of Pearls". Until the day she died, she had children recognizing her and coming up to her to ask why she was so mean to Dorothy. In 1954, she graduated from Thomas Hancock High School in Minnesota. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, presented on November 22, 2016 by the President of the United States, for her brilliant work during the Apollo missions in the 1960s. With the error addressed, the lunar landings for Apollos 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 were made possible. According to MIT, this was the first air defense system for the country and helped to push forward digital computing in the 1950s and 1960s. It was a memorable day when one of the most respected hardware gurus explained to everyone in a meeting that he agreed with me that the process of building software should also be considered an engineering discipline, just like with hardware. Because software was a mystery, a black box, upper management gave us total freedom and trust. It then sent out an alarm, which meant to the astronaut, 'I'm overloaded with more tasks than I should be doing at this time and I'm going to keep only the more important tasks'; i.e., the ones needed for landing Actually, the computer was programmed to do more than recognize error conditions. Guest in the House. Hamilton next worked at MITs Instrumentation Laboratory (now the independent Charles Stark Draper Laboratory), which provided aeronautical technology for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. Hamilton, now an independent computer scientist, described for MIT News in 2009 her contributions to the Apollo software which last month was added in its entirety to the code-sharing site GitHub: From my own perspective, the software experience itself (designing it, developing it, evolving it, watching it perform and learning from it for future systems) was at least as exciting as the events surrounding the mission. Discover Margaret Hamilton's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Margaret Elaine Hamilton (born Heafield on August 17, 1936) is an American computer scientist, systems engineer, and business owner. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. She also published six books. In March 1986, she founded Hamilton Technologies, Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is ironic that her performance as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz (1939) was so scary to children, because her first job was as a kindergarten teacher. Half a century ago, MIT played a critical role in the development of the flight software for NASAs Apollo program, which landed humans on the Moon for the first time in 1969. At the time, no schools taught software engineering, so the team members had to work out any problems on their own. Margaret Hamilton was born December 9, 1902 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Jennie (Adams) and Walter Hamilton. One of the many contributors to this effort was Margaret Hamilton, a computer scientist who led the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which in 1961 contracted with NASA to develop the Apollo programs guidance system. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Copyright 2018-2023, All Rights Reserved Super Stars Bio. On April 28, 2017, she received the Computer History Museum Fellow Award, which honors exceptional men and women whose computing ideas have changed the world. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. [42][43][44] It was successfully used in numerous government programs[45][46] including a project to formalize and implement C-IDEF, an automated version of IDEF, a modeling language developed by the U.S. Air Force in the Integrated Computer-Aided Manufacturing (ICAM) project. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. Margaret Hamilton's net worth She served on the Beverly Hills Board of Education from 1948 to 1951 and was a Sunday school teacher during the 1950s. She led a team that was tasked with developing the software for the guidance and control systems of the in-flight command and lunar modules of the Apollo missions. [2], Margaret Elaine Heafield was born August 17, 1936, in Paoli, Indiana,[3] to Kenneth Heafield and Ruth Esther Heafield (ne Partington). On weekends, she took her daughter Lauren to the lab to spend time with her, while she worked writing the computer routines that would go on the Apollo command module computer. Margaret Brainard Hamilton (December 9, 1902 - May 16, 1985) was an American actress and educator. Contrary to her character, one of the top villains in movie . For her work during this period, Hamilton has been credited with popularizing the concept of software engineering. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. She also gained recognition for her work as an advocate of causes designed to benefit children and animals and retained a lifelong commitment to public education. [Related: Apollo Coder and 'Apollo 13' Actor Receive Presidential Medals of Freedom]. The contract was awarded just weeks before then-President John F. Kennedy announced that he planned to have humans on the moon by the end of the decade. Zeitlin, Arnold. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Margaret Hamilton (December 9, 1902 - May 16, 1985) was an American film actress known for her portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. [62] Writing in Wired, Robert McMillan noted: "At MIT she assisted in the creation of the core principles in computer programming as she worked with her colleagues in writing code for the world's first portable computer". ", Hamilton later left MIT to start her own software company, but her name is still most recognized for her lunar landing accomplishments. We took our work seriously, many of us beginning this journey while still in our 20s. Hamilton was cast after Gale Sondergaard, who was first considered for the role, albeit as a more glamorous witch with a musical scene, declined the role when the decision was made that the witch should appear ugly.[6].