Opinion: Women computer pioneers

As Women’s History Month comes to an end, I’d like to recognize two women who were developing the modern computer long before most Americans even knew about the electronic device. Their contributions, one in the mid-19th century and the other a hundred years later in the mid-20th century, introduced novel ways of solving problems. Although they lived a century apart, both women helped to guide the development of the computers that we use every day.

Ada Lovelace

Augusta Ada King (nee Byron), Countess of Lovelace, better known simply as Ada Lovelace, was the only legitimate child of the famous British poet Lord Byron. She was born in December, 1815, and acquired the “Lovelace” name when she married William King who became the Earl of Lovelace in 1838. Although, from just that much information, it sounds as if Ada would have had an ideal childhood, nothing could be further from the truth.

Lord Byron wanted a son, was disappointed when the baby was a daughter, and left her and her mother Anne Isabella Milbanke when she was just five weeks old. For the most part, she was raised by her maternal grandmother while her mother was off attending to affairs… of the heart.