by Kurt W Beyer
GRACE HOPPER AND THE INVENTION OF THE INFORMATION AGE
LEMELSON CENTER STUDIES IN INVENTION AND INNOVATION
ARTHUR P. MOLELLA AND JOYCE BEDI, GENERAL EDITORS
Arthur P. Molella and Joyce Bedi, editors, Inventing for the Environment
Paul E. Ceruzzi, Internet Alley: High Technology in Tysons Corner, 1945–2005
Robert H. Kargon and Arthur P. Molella, Invented Edens: Techno-Cities of the Twentieth Century
Kurt Beyer, Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age
GRACE HOPPER AND THE INVENTION OF THE INFORMATION AGE
KURT BEYER
THE MIT PRESS
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
LONDON, ENGLAND
© 2009 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Set in Engraver’s Gothic and Bembo by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong. Printed and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Beyer, Kurt W.
Grace Hopper and the invention of the information age/Kurt W. Beyer.
p. cm.—(Lemelson Center studies in invention and innovation series)
Includes bibiographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-262-01310-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Hopper, Grace Murray. 2. Women computer engineers—United States—Biography. 3. Computer science—United States—History.
I. Title.
QA76.2.H67B49 2009 004.092—dc22 2008044229
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
for my late father, Karl Beyer
CONTENTS
SERIES FOREWORD IX
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS XI
1 THE MYTH OF AMAZING GRACE 1
2 THE REBIRTH OF GRACE MURRAY HOPPER 23
3 THE ORIGINS OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING 45
4 THE HARVARD COMPUTATION LABORATORY 73
5 THE BEGINNING OF A COMPUTING COMMUNITY 107
6 THE 1947 HARVARD SYMPOSIUM ON LARGE-SCALE DIGITAL CALCULATING MACHINERY 141
7 STARING INTO THE ABYSS 175
8 THE EDUCATION OF A COMPUTER 213
9 IBM ANSWERS REMINGTON RAND’S CHALLENGE 247
10 THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROBLEM-ORIENTED LANGUAGES 263
11 DISTRIBUTED INVENTION MATURES: GRACE HOPPER AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF COBOL 277
12 INVENTING THE INFORMATION AGE 311
NOTES 325
INDEX 381
SERIES FOREWORD
Invention and innovation have long been recognized as significant forces in American history, not only in technological realms but also as models in politics, society, and culture. They are arguably more important than previously thought in other societies as well. What there is no question about is that they have become the universal watchwords of the twenty-first century, so much so that nations are staking their futures on them.
Since 1995, the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center has been investigating the history of invention and innovation from such broad interdisciplinary perspectives. So, too, does this series, the Lemelson Center Studies in Invention and Innovation. Books in the series explore the work of inventors and the technologies they create in order to advance scholarship in history, engineering, science, and related fields that have a direct connection to technological invention, such as urban planning, architecture, and the arts. By opening channels of communication between the various disciplines and sectors of society concerned with technological innovation, the Lemelson Center Studies aim to enhance public understanding of humankind’s inventive impulse.
Arthur Molella and Joyce Bedi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I first came across Admiral Grace Murray Hopper when I was a teenager attending my sister’s graduation from the College of William and Mary. The fiery speaker stoked my imagination and influenced my own career choices, first as a naval officer, then as an academic, and finally as an information technology entrepreneur.
Hopper was a well-known figure in the Navy, but when I arrived at the University of California at Berkeley I found, to my surprise, that many people there did not know about her accomplishments. Berkeley in the late 1990s was at the epicenter of the “dot com” boom, a phenomenon dominated by young male entrepreneurs who slept under their desks, dreamed of stock options, and believed they were inventing the Information Age for the first time.
Under the guidance of Cathryn Carson, Jack Lesche, Todd La Porte, Roger Hahn, and Thomas Hughes, I began piecing together the evolution of the Information Age.
Not only did Grace Hopper play a pivotal role in creating the foundation for the computer industry; she was surrounded by remarkable men and women whose contributions have been overlooked or forgotten. I have woven their story into this book, with Hopper’s early career serving as the binding thread.
Cathy Carson influenced me greatly during my time at Berkeley. Her work ethic and her dedication to this project will forever be appreciated. I also felt very fortunate to spend quiet summer afternoons learning from one of the founders of the field of the history of technology, Thomas Hughes. He helped me understand how technologies evolve and grow, and what role system builders such as Hopper play in the process of technical innovation.
Over the years I spent many hours in archives throughout the country. The help of the archivists at these repositories in sifting through documents was invaluable. In particular, the good people at the Archives Center at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, at the Charles Babbage Institute’s Center for the History of Information Technology at the University of Minnesota, at the Harvard University Archives in Cambridge, and at the Van Pelt Library of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia must be commended. Special thanks to Alison Oswald at the Smithsonian and to Jeffrey Yost and Arthur Norberg at the Charles Babbage Institute. I especially enjoyed Arthur’s insights based on his Remington Rand research.
It takes a village to turn research into a manuscript, and many people helped to forge this work along the way. My wife Johanna was a constant springboard for ideas and put up with many late nights. Tim Kasta was a valuable sounding board as we discussed the intricacies of technical innovation over California wine. Colleagues at the Naval Academy, especially Bob Artigiani and David Peeler, keenly commented on drafts. Paul Cerruzi, W. Bernard Carlson, and Kathleen Williams provided valuable support and feedback. During the final preparation of the manuscript, Joyce Bedi and Art Molella of the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center were indispensable. Joyce in particular must be thanked for long discussions over cracked crab in Annapolis. Her unwavering support during my transition to fatherhood will also not be forgotten.
GRACE HOPPER AND THE INVENTION OF THE INFORMATION AGE
1 THE MYTH OF AMAZING GRACE
Recently I typed “Grace Hopper” into a popular Internet search engine and came up with more than a million “hits.” Though this number pales in comparison with those for other twentieth-century icons, say John F. Kennedy (11 million) or Elvis Presley (8 million), Hopper is unquestionably the most numerically popular computer pioneer on the Web.1 The top results are an assortment of adoring websites dedicated to “Amazing Grace” or “The Grandmother of Cobol” and numerous quotations from Hopper herself. An image search produces hundreds of pictures of the petite, heavily wrinkled computer programmer proudly wear
ing her Navy uniform in the twilight of her career.
There is no denying that Grace Murray Hopper became a minor celebrity during the autumn of her career, or that she came to personify computer programming and the programming profession. But Hopper’s career may have gone unnoticed by the public had it not been for an interview broadcast on the popular CBS television show 60 Minutes in March 1983. In that interview (conducted by Morley Safer), the irreverent Hopper, then a captain, playfully reflected on her life. Hers was a classic Hollywood-style tale: a young, bright-eyed mathematics professor leaves her job to serve her country during World War II and serendipitously finds herself at the forefront of the computer revolution, facing technical challenges and gender discrimination. With hard work and perseverance bordering on obstinacy, she helps to drive the new technology forward. The result is a superlative career that follows the meteoric trajectory of the information age.
Among the millions of people who saw the 60 Minutes interview was U.S. Representative Philip Crane (R-Illinois). He promptly initiated a bill to have the contributions of this extraordinary woman properly recognized. The bill, passed by the House of Representatives, promoted Captain Grace Hopper by special appointment to the lofty rank of Commodore. Later she was promoted to Rear Admiral and was accorded further honors and awards. In 1985 the Navy’s newest Data Automation Center was renamed the Grace Murray Hopper Center, and in 1997 the Navy’s latest and most advanced guided missile destroyer was named the USS Grace Hopper.
The accolades precipitated by the 60 Minutes interview were well deserved, but the interview also marked a growing chasm between rhetoric and reality. The public discourse since 1983 has preserved and perpetuated the “myth” of Grace Hopper, depicting her as a heroic pioneer who was single-handedly responsible for the invention of computer programming. And, as evidenced by interviews, articles, and speeches in her final years, Hopper enjoyed the limelight to a great extent, which only helped to further her myth. The intention of this book is to strip back the layers of rhetoric and to uncover a more authentic Grace Hopper in the context of the early computer industry. The young, vibrant Grace Hopper portrayed in these pages is far more complex and human then the popular press’s portrayals of the aging admiral.
HOPPER IN HER PRIME: THE COLLABORATIVE REBEL
Anecdotes abound of the late Admiral Hopper, the majority highlighting her most lauded trait: irreverence bordering on insubordination. Nonetheless, the first 36 years of her life were marked by a certain amount of conventionality. In the 1920s it was not uncommon for privileged women from the Northeast to seek higher education. In fact, the percentage of women receiving doctorates in mathematics during the 1920s and the early 1930s was not achieved again until the 1980s.2 This reminds us that the history of women’s emancipation in America has not been linear. Rather than steady progress, there have been waves of opportunity and retrenchment—for example, increasing opportunity in the 10 years after World War I, then retrenchment during the Depression. Hopper came of age during the 1920s, and both her public choices and her private ones coincided rather than conflicted with the desires of her family and her community.
The attack on Pearl Harbor and the ensuing mobilization created unprecedented career opportunities for women. The large-scale reorganization of labor opened a wide variety of occupations that before 7 December 1941 were reserved for men. The most iconic cultural image of this period, Rosie the Riveter, represented the millions of women who replaced men in the workforce as they deployed to Europe and the Pacific. Like millions of other women of her generation, Hopper benefited from this labor shift. And Pearl Harbor was a watershed in Grace Hopper’s personal life as well as in her career. In the months following that fateful day, she divorced her husband, left a secure tenure-track position at Vassar College, and joined the Navy. She then became an officer in one of the most gendered organizations of its day. Her military rank endowed her with the external trappings of authority: uniform, title, pay, privilege. Military rank, protocol, and tradition helped to neutralize societal prejudices against women in positions of public responsibility.
The benefits of military rank were evident as newly minted Lieutenant (j.g.) Hopper was assigned to Commander Howard Aiken’s Harvard Computation Laboratory during the war. Aiken, a difficult man who would be classified as a “male chauvinist” by today’s standards, found a kinship with Hopper not because she was a rebel but because of her ability to ingratiate herself to Aiken and her fellow workers. Of course she was a talented mathematician and computer programmer, but more importantly she was loyal to her boss and helped to organize and control his laboratory. She actively erased gender differences through her clothing, her language, her drinking habits, and her humor, gaining the trust and respect of Aiken and her peers to the point that she became the most prominent person in the Harvard Computation Laboratory apart from the fiery Aiken.
The pattern of collaboration rather than rebellion continued when Hopper left Harvard and joined the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC) in 1949. Far from shunning organizational politics and attempting to garner respect entirely on the basis of her technical talents, Hopper actively participated in and even shaped the organizational culture of the EMCC and that of the greater programming community. The alliances she cultivated supported her career initiatives and protected her during times of turmoil. Indeed, she was so good at understanding institutions and their unwritten rules that she remained influential in male-dominated military and business organizations throughout the postwar period, during which women were encouraged to retreat from the public sphere. All things considered, it was Hopper’s collaborative abilities rather than her rebellious nature that created the space for her independent thought and action within potentially hostile organizations.
Hopper’s professional freedom also was facilitated by the novelty of the computer profession. The fact that computing was a new discipline afforded her the flexibility to define her role within the emerging computing community. More established fields often have gender-defined roles and responsibilities.3 Hopper’s programming knowledge and expertise stood her in good stead with her peers, regardless of gender. And as the relevance of programming grew, so did Hopper’s stature.
It is important to note that when relatively well-established companies such as Remington Rand and IBM became involved in computing, they brought with them a masculine business culture that negatively affected the evolving gender-neutral programming profession. Betty Snyder Holberton and Betty “Jean” Jennings Bartik experienced the sea change at Remington Rand, which effectively ended their private-sector careers, and John Backus (the inventor of FORTRAN) described the programming culture at IBM in the late 1950s as that of an elite male fraternity.4
The exceptional challenges that Grace Hopper and her female peers faced as they attempted to forge careers after the war reminds us that “success” as defined by one’s society often come at a personal price. Hopper, like other women during her era, consciously traded marriage and family for a career. Though she filled the emotional gap with colleagues, Hopper’s most common method of dealing with personal loneliness was to throw herself into her work. The stress of being a pioneer exploring uncharted intellectual territory in an adolescent field weighed heavily on her at times. The burden of constantly peering into an uncertain future became so daunting during the late 1940s that Hopper reached a breaking point. Close friends and family rescued her from alcoholism and dissuaded her from suicide. Rather than tarnishing her enduring reputation, Hopper’s personal struggles highlight her achievements and remind us that even the best and brightest among us are sometimes overwhelmed by life’s challenges.
PROGRAMMING AS INVENTION
Most stories of invention revolve around a particular physical artifact, such as the airplane or the automobile. The physical artifact lends itself to description by the author and evolves physically over time, and its importance within the context of the history of technology is readily evident. Writing a book ab
out the invention of programming comes with its own challenges. Though programs are “physical” in the sense that they can be printed out or viewed on a computer screen, “programming” is the active process of making programs, so the invention of programming entails describing the invention of an action or an activity as much as it has to do with a thing.
It is no surprise, then, that historians have largely overlooked the history of programming. It was not until the 1980s and the early 1990s that William Aspray, Nancy Stern, Michael Mahoney, Paul Ceruzzi, and others began exploring computer history.5 Their early works, for the most part, concentrate on machines and the men who created them. In retrospect, the emphasis on hardware is paradoxical insofar as by 1970 the vast majority of the computer industry’s productive resources went into programming and software development. By 1985, software constituted 90 percent of the cost of a computer system, and Microsoft soon eclipsed IBM in market capitalization and influence.6
The first coordinated effort to promote the history of programming was a 1978 conference sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery. Led by the longtime programmer Jean Sammet, the three-day conference asked programming pioneers to dig into their personal notebooks and diaries and attempt to reconstruct a computing past of which they had been a part. The keynote speaker for the event was none other than Grace Hopper. The ACM held a second History of Programming Languages conference in 1993. Once again, the makers of history rather than professional historians presented papers and discussed the historical significance of their work. Fortunately, the historical community has demonstrated a growing interest in computers and programming since the last ACM conference, and in April 2001 a well-attended conference on the history of software was held in Palo Alto.7
