Women Breaking The Code
Stories Of Women Behind Early Tech Breakthroughs
We’ve all heard it before: “Women aren’t good at math.” But if that were true, names like Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, Hedy Lamarr, Katherine Johnson, Annie Jump Cannon, Margaret R. Fox, and Gladys West wouldn’t stand out in history.
These women were pioneers in mathematics, computer science, and technology, making groundbreaking contributions that have shaped modern computing and scientific understanding.
Let’s delve into the remarkable roles women have played in technological advancement.
Early Contributions
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, “computer” referred to people performing complex calculations by hand. Many of these human computers were women. At the Harvard College Observatory, women like Henrietta Swan Leavitt and Annie Jump Cannon cataloged stars, providing foundational astronomical data that remain crucial today.
