Questor
2021-10-27 02:02:42 UTC
Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet
Claire L. Evans
2018; Portfolio / Penguin
This book's title is a bit misleading. More accurately, it's a
collection of stories in modern computing history about women who made
contributions to various technologies that underlie and shape the
Internet as we know it today.
The book is divided into three parts, the first of which opens with a
chapter on Ada Lovelace. The remainder of the section is largely
devoted to the career of Grace Hopper and her contributions to computer
language development, but we are also introduced to the "ENIAC Six":
Kathleen McNulty, Betty Jean Jennings, Elizabeth Synder, Marlyn Wescoff,
Frances Bilas, and Ruth Lichterman. These women were responsible for
configuring and rewiring the ENIAC for each new problem, in essence
becoming some of the world's first programmers. They later became
valued employees of the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, but sadly
after that company's acquisition by Remington Rand, they were
increasingly sidelined and disregarded.
The second section tells the stories of early computer-based online
communities such as Resource One in San Francisco and Echo in New York.
We also learn of the women involved in the early days of the ARPAnet,
like Elizabeth "Jake" Feinler, who created and ran the Network
Information Center (NIC), organizing and administrating the growing
network for over fifteen years, and Radia Perlman, who invented the
spanning tree algorithm that allowed the Internet to scale to its
present size. The section closes with a chapter on hypertext systems,
which were often more sophisticated precursors to today's web links.
The final third of the book tells the stories of early web sites aimed
at women, like iVillage and WOMEN.COM, and the women who created them.
The text is augmented by an index and attributional notes. My one
quibble is that I would have liked a separate bibliography listing the
resources found in the notes. This is a well-written and researched
book that presents many people and stories that have been overlooked.
Of particular interest is the first section with its coverage of the
very early days of electronic computing. That alone is enough to give
this book a strong positive recommendation, although there is also more
of value in the later chapters.
Claire L. Evans
2018; Portfolio / Penguin
This book's title is a bit misleading. More accurately, it's a
collection of stories in modern computing history about women who made
contributions to various technologies that underlie and shape the
Internet as we know it today.
The book is divided into three parts, the first of which opens with a
chapter on Ada Lovelace. The remainder of the section is largely
devoted to the career of Grace Hopper and her contributions to computer
language development, but we are also introduced to the "ENIAC Six":
Kathleen McNulty, Betty Jean Jennings, Elizabeth Synder, Marlyn Wescoff,
Frances Bilas, and Ruth Lichterman. These women were responsible for
configuring and rewiring the ENIAC for each new problem, in essence
becoming some of the world's first programmers. They later became
valued employees of the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, but sadly
after that company's acquisition by Remington Rand, they were
increasingly sidelined and disregarded.
The second section tells the stories of early computer-based online
communities such as Resource One in San Francisco and Echo in New York.
We also learn of the women involved in the early days of the ARPAnet,
like Elizabeth "Jake" Feinler, who created and ran the Network
Information Center (NIC), organizing and administrating the growing
network for over fifteen years, and Radia Perlman, who invented the
spanning tree algorithm that allowed the Internet to scale to its
present size. The section closes with a chapter on hypertext systems,
which were often more sophisticated precursors to today's web links.
The final third of the book tells the stories of early web sites aimed
at women, like iVillage and WOMEN.COM, and the women who created them.
The text is augmented by an index and attributional notes. My one
quibble is that I would have liked a separate bibliography listing the
resources found in the notes. This is a well-written and researched
book that presents many people and stories that have been overlooked.
Of particular interest is the first section with its coverage of the
very early days of electronic computing. That alone is enough to give
this book a strong positive recommendation, although there is also more
of value in the later chapters.