Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Meltzer, Fran Bilas, and Ruth Lichterman were the first programmers of the ENIAC. They were not, as computer scientist and historian Kathryn Kleiman was once told, "refrigerator ladies", i.e., models posing in front of the machine for press photography. Nevertheless, some of the women did not receive recognition for their work on the ENIAC in their lifetimes. After the war ended, the women continued to work on the ENIAC. Their expertise made their positions difficult to replace with returning soldiers. The original programmers of the ENIAC were neither recognized for their efforts nor known to the public until the mid-1980s.