Q&A
From Ada Lovelace to the codebreakers of WWII, John Croucher discusses the role of women in computing
What are some of the earliest examples of women in computing? Have they been there since the beginning?
Even in what might be viewed as the beginnings of computing, women are involved. One of the earliest was Nicole-Reine Étable de la Brière (1723-1788), born in France, an expert in astronomy and advanced mathematics. For her amazing achievements, the asteroid 7720 Lepaute and the lunar crater Lepaute are named in her honour. Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) was the first person to see the enormous potential of Charles Babbage’s device, sensing that his Analytical Engine had the capacity to be programmed rather than simply perform basic operations. Her name is honoured in the Lovelace Medal, awarded since 1998 by the British Computer Society, and since 2008 in an annual competition for women students. Ada Lovelace is now widely regarded as being the world’s first computer programmer and her method as the first computer program.
Why, historically, was computing a field open to women as opposed to other fields of science?
During World War II, women comprised the vast majority of computer programmers in the US and UK. The war opened up the field for a number of women, including those termed ‘human computers’, doing manual calculations of things such as firing tables for guns and ballistic missile trajectories. This was typified by the amazing code-breakers at Bletchley Park, a British government cryptological establishment. Two of those involved were Mavis Batey and Ann Mitchell.
The ENIAC was the first all-electronic programmable computer, and in 1945 six outstanding women – Jean Bartik, Marlyn Meltzer, Ruth Teitelbaum, Betty Holberton, Frances Spence, and Kay Antonelli – revolutionised computer programming. Their efforts helped lead the world into the computer age in the 1970s and early 1980s and, in the mid80s, about 40 per cent of computer science graduates were women.
In IT Girls you show that historically computing could be an incredibly diverse field. How important is diversity to computing history?
In the evolution of computing diversity is very important. These pioneering wome
