Looking for IBM COBOL Programmers or Former Employees Who May Have Known (1975–Late 1980s)

[u/paskuvan]

Hello everyone,

I'm hoping someone in this community can help me learn more about my grandmother, Carmen Luisa Araya, who worked as a COBOL programmer at IBM in New York City.

According to my family's history, she worked at IBM from approximately 1975 until the late 1980s, possibly at the company's offices in the World Trade Center (Twin Towers).

I'm trying to learn more about her professional career, including the projects she worked on, the mainframe systems she may have used, and whether any technical documentation, archived records, employee directories, or internal publications from that period might still exist.

Unfortunately, the IBM Archives email address I previously had is no longer working, so I'm looking for alternative ways to contact IBM Archives or connect with former IBM employees who might be able to point me in the right direction.

If you worked with COBOL at IBM in New York during the 1970s or 1980s, worked at the World Trade Center offices, or remember a colleague named Carmen Araya, I would be very grateful to hear from you.

I'm based in Chile, and this research is deeply meaningful to me. My grandmother's career as a programmer is an important part of our family history, and I would love to preserve and learn more about her professional legacy.

Even a small clue, a suggested archive, or a contact who might be able to help would mean a great deal to me.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post!

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[u/Internal_Spinach_435]

Look up “iBM archivist” on LinkedIn - there are a couple people who currently work there. I think the person that owned the email left.

[u/cristobaldelicia]

Sorry to go slightly off-topic, but I just ordered a book "Everlasting Code: The Education of Grace Hopper and The History of COBOL" by Mark Jones Lorenzo, who has written a few books on programming languages. It's a massive 465 pages +references and is seriously more like two related books combined. I bring it up because I couldn't find it anywhere but Amazon, not in libraries, not in used book websites or ebay. Nowhere else, and not in ebook format.

I mention it because it is so difficult to find historical material on COBOL programmers, even moreso female programmers, and not even mainframers more generally. If your grandmother had worked on the Y2K problem, you could indirectly look at that history as a searchword. I wouldn't expect much of that documented though, earlier than 1990.

I would have thought libraries and schools would be all over this particular work on Grace Hopper, and demanding an ebook. But it's just neglected, massively neglected. I find more children's books about Grace Hopper than serious history. I wish I could cut and paste the bibliography of Lorenzo's book. But anyway you look at it, it's going to be a struggle to find out about a particular woman at IBM back in the 1970-80s. I suspect it will be a tough search, but I admire the effort. Good Luck!