When the United States entered World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the demand for technical workers across every dimension of the war effort created openings that had simply not existed before.

Aircraft manufacturing was one of the most critical industries in the war effort.

Building effective military aircraft — fighters, bombers, transport planes — required not just factory workers but engineers, mathematicians, physicists, and analysts.

The male engineers who would normally have filled those roles were being drafted.

The companies that made the planes needed to find people who could do the analytical work regardless of who those people were.

Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, based in Burbank, California, was one of the major American aircraft manufacturers, with a long history of producing innovative aircraft and a growing role in the wartime production effort.