If You're Curious About These Questions...
You should listen to this audiobook
- Did you know that the complex world of computer programming was originally dismissed as 'clerical work' and almost exclusively performed by women?
- Have you ever wondered who the unsung 'mothers of the internet' were, and why their names are missing from most history books?
- Are you curious about how the visionary women of the 19th and 20th centuries predicted the digital world we live in today long before the first computer was even built?
Listen to Broad Band — Free Audiobook
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Key Takeaways from Broad Band
- Discover how the foundational mental labor of women built the computer science industry, forging vital professional paths that were historically erased by sexist stereotypes.
- Learn how Ada Lovelace became the world's first computer programmer by expanding on Charles Babbage's analytical engine to envision general-purpose computing.
- Understand how Grace Hopper revolutionized the tech industry by inventing the first compiler and spearheading COBOL, a universal programming language that made coding accessible to nonexperts.
- Find out what a 'kilogirl' is and how female human computers drove essential mathematical computations by hand long before electronic machines existed.
- Explore how the pioneering women of the ENIAC Six taught themselves to program the world's first electronic computer through sheer physical and mental effort, completely without user manuals.
Learning Tools
Reinforce what you learned from Broad Band
Mind Map
Broad Band
The Erasure of Women in Computing+
The First Programmers+
Building the Early Internet+
Social Media and Web Culture+
Hypertext and Digital Publishing+
Quiz — Test Your Understanding
Question 1 of 8
How did Ada Lovelace make her mark as the world's first computer programmer?
Question 2 of 8
What was Grace Hopper's primary motivation for creating a compiler and advocating for COBOL?
Question 3 of 8
What did the term 'kilogirl' refer to during the era of the ENIAC Six?
Question 4 of 8
How did Pam Hardt-English and her colleagues ultimately use their donated SDS-940 computer for social good?
Question 5 of 8
What enduring internet organizational system did Elizabeth 'Jake' Feinler help establish while managing the ARPANET?
Question 6 of 8
Which modern social media phenomena were foreshadowed by Stacy Horn's 1990 online community, Echo?
Question 7 of 8
Why did Tim Berners-Lee's World Wide Web ultimately overshadow Dame Wendy Hall's hypertext system, Microcosm?
Question 8 of 8
Before the widespread use of the World Wide Web, how did Jaime Levy pioneer digital publishing?
Broad Band — Full Chapter Overview
- 1Recommendation
- 21 — Ada Lovelace was the world’s first programmer.
- 32 — Grace Hopper was a pioneer in computer science.
- 43 — The women of the ENIAC Six taught themselves how to program the first electronic computer.
- 54 — Women helped build communication networks for the public good.
- 65 — Elizabeth “Jake” Feinler helped create a key precursor to the internet.
- 76 — Echo, one of the first social media networks, was created by a woman and had the first influencer.
- 87 — Dame Wendy Hall advanced hypertext, which helped lead to the World Wide Web.
- 98 — Jaime Levy pioneered digital publishing.
- 109 — Final summary
Broad Band Summary & Overview
Broad Band (2018) tells the story of the women who played significant roles in the evolution of computers and the internet. It examines how these women became trailblazers in fields of work that were initially considered boring – but later proved to be of great importance.
Who Should Listen to Broad Band ?
- Young women interested in pursuing a career in computer science
- Computer scientists and engineers
- People interested in how women have shaped our world
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