In recognition of Women’s History Month, Smithtown Matters is proud to recognize the accomplishments of women. It is fascinating to learn the wonderful and interesting ways women have made their mark on the world. Throughout March, SmithtownMatters will give a brief history of women who made a difference.
Day 15 - Grace Murray Hopper - Educator, Navy Officer, Inventor of computer language programs
Grace Murray Hopper, American Navy officer, mathematician, and pioneer in data processing, born in New York City and educated at Vassar College and at Yale University. An associate professor of mathematics at Vassar, In 1930 Grace Brewster Murray married Vincent Foster Hopper. (He died in 1945 during World War II, and they had no children.) Hopper joined the Na-vy in 1943. She was assigned to Howard Aiken’s computation lab at Harvard University, where she worked as a programmer on the Mark I, the first large-scale U.S. computer and a precursor of electronic computers.
Well known for her work in the 1950s and 1960s at the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, later part of Sperry Rand, Hopper was credited with devising the first compiler (1952), a program that translates instructions for a computer from English to machine language. She helped develop the Flow-Matic programming language (1957) and the Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL; 1959-61) for the UNIVAC, the first commercial electronic computer. She worked to attract industry and business interests to computers and to bridge the gulf between management and programmers. Hopper taught and lectured extensively throughout the 1960s. She retired from the U.S. Naval Reserve only to be recalled to oversee the navy’s program to standardize its computer programs and languages. She was elevated to the rank of captain by a special act of Congress in 1973 and to the rank of rear admiral in 1983. Hopper retired from the navy in 1986 and served as a senior consultant with Digital Equipment Corporation. (Reprinted from Idea Finder)