Betty Jean Jennings, one of the first women in IT industry, passes away

I recently wrote about Betty Jean Jennings in my blog post on the documentary “Top Secret Rosies: The Female Computers of WWII”.  She was featured prominently in “Top Secret Rosies” for her work computing ballistics trajectories for the army during World War II.  Today I learned that Betty Jean Jennings passed away on March 23, 2011, at the age of 86.

Betty Jean Jennings was born on December 27, 1924 in Missouri.  She attended the Northwest Missouri State Teachers College in the 1940s, and majored in mathematics.  After graduating, she went to work for the U.S. Army, computing ballistics trajectories.   This work eventually led to her being selected as one of six women chosen to program ENIAC, the first electronic computer.  At age 20, she was the youngest woman chosen to participate.  She was one of two women who created the trajectory program for the public demonstration of ENIAC.  After the war was over, she worked on BINAC, another early electronic computer, and UNIVAC, the first commercial computer.  She was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame in 1997.

Betty Jean Jennings made extremely valuable contributions to the development of computers and computer programming and her legacy will live on through her pioneering work.  If you’re interested in learning more about her, I strongly suggest you watch “Top Secret Rosies”, which is instant watch on Netflix!

Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace is hailed as the world’s first computer programmer.  She was born in 1815, the daughter of the poet Lord Byron.  Shortly after Ada’s birth, Lord and Lady Byron separated, leaving Lady Byron to raise Ada on her own.  Not wanting Ada to become a poet like her father, Lady Byron made sure Ada was taught mathematics and science.  When she was 17, Ada was introduced to Mary Somerville, who translated Laplace’s works into English.  At one of Mrs. Somerville’s dinner parties, Ada heard about Charles Babbage‘s idea for the analytical engine, a mechanical computer that would be the successor to the difference engine, which was a design for a mechanical calculator.

In 1842, mathematician Louis Menebrea wrote a summary of the analytical engine in an article in French.  Babbage enlisted Ada to translate it into English.  Ada translated it and added a set of notes, which ended up being three times as long as the original article.  Ada Lovelace and Babbage exchanged correspondence about the engine, and Ada predicted it could have many practical and scientific uses, such as composing complex music and creating graphics.  Ada’s notes also included a method of calculating the Bernoulli numbers.  This is considered the first computer program.

Unfortunately, the analytical engine was never built, partially due to a lack of funding.  Ada died in 1852, at the young age of 36, from uterine cancer.

Sources: 1, 2