{"product_id":"broad-band-isbn-9780593329443","title":"Broad Band","description":"\u003cb\u003eIf you loved \u003ci\u003eHidden Figures\u003c\/i\u003e or \u003ci\u003eThe Rise of the Rocket Girls\u003c\/i\u003e, you'll love Claire Evans' breakthrough book on the women who brought you the internet--written out of history, until now.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This is a radically important, timely work,\" says Miranda July, filmmaker and author of \u003ci\u003eThe First Bad Man\u003c\/i\u003e. The history of technology you probably know is one of men and machines, garages and riches, alpha nerds and brogrammers--but from Ada Lovelace, who wrote the first computer program in the Victorian Age, to the cyberpunk Web designers of the 1990s, female visionaries have always been at the vanguard of technology and innovation. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn fact, women turn up at the very beginning of every important wave in technology. They may have been hidden in plain sight, their inventions and contributions touching our lives in ways we don't even realize, but they have always been part of the story. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eVICE\u003c\/i\u003e reporter and YACHT lead singer Claire L. Evans finally gives these unsung female heroes their due with her insightful social history of the Broad Band, the women who made the internet what it is today. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSeek inspiration from Grace Hopper, the tenacious mathematician who democratized computing by leading the charge for machine-independent programming languages after World War II. Meet Elizabeth \"Jake\" Feinler, the one-woman Google who kept the earliest version of the Internet online, and Stacy Horn, who ran one of the first-ever social networks on a shoestring out of her New York City apartment in the 1980s. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJoin the ranks of the pioneers who defied social convention to become database poets, information-wranglers, hypertext dreamers, and glass ceiling-shattering dot com-era entrepreneurs. This inspiring call to action shines a light on the bright minds whom history forgot, and shows us how they will continue to shape our world in ways we can no longer ignore.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWelcome to the Broad Band. You're next.\"An insightful, intelligent observer...Evans proves a companionable guide for a tour through cyberspace...[and] provide[s] much needed perspective.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eBroad Band\u003c\/i\u003e is a celebration of the women whose minds gave birth to the motherboard and its brethren.... an engaging series of biographical essays on lesser known mathematicians, innovators and cyberpunks.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"A jaunty new history of women in computing.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eWIRED\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A spirited collection of portraits of women who contributed to the infrastructure of the digital economy.” —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In this inspiring tale, writer Evans chronicles the contributions of some of the many women who aided the rise of the modern Internet.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eScientific American\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“An invigorating history of female coders, engineers, entrepreneurs, and visionaries who helped create and shape the internet.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"An edifying and entertaining history of the rise of the computer age and the women who made it possible. A good choice for fans of \u003ci\u003eHidden Figures\u003c\/i\u003e.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eA “fascinating and inspiring work of women’s history.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eBroad Band\u003c\/i\u003e is the \u003ci\u003eOur Bodies, Ourselves\u003c\/i\u003e for all computer users—this knowledge belongs to us. And Claire Evans tells the story like a friend who knows you get bored easily; a generous sort of brilliance that pulled me right in. This is a radicallyimportant, timely work.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eMIRANDA JULY\u003c\/b\u003e, filmmaker, artist, and author of \u003ci\u003eThe First Bad Man\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eBroad Band\u003c\/i\u003e is such an interesting secret history, written with great panache.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eJON RONSON\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Psychopath Test\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eSo You’ve Been Publicly Shamed\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A necessary addition to the story of women in computing, about known heroes and the fearless women and punks the world needs to know more about.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eELLEN ULLMAN\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eLife in Code\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eClose to the Machine\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Bug\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eBroad Band\u003c\/i\u003e is thrilling, powerful stuff. At once an electric feminist history of modern tech and a much-needed corrective to the hyper-male mythology of Silicon Valley, Evans’s compelling, surprising, and eminently readable work restores due credit to the countless brilliant women who made the connected world into what it is today.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eBRIAN MERCHANT\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eThe One Device\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Evans’s riveting account of female innovators from the Victorianage to today fills in gaps in the history we should have had all along, and provides unique, enlightening insight into some of the most revolutionary technological advances of our time—from the world’s first computer game to the creation of the ‘.com’ domain.” \u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eJOSHUA DAVIS\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eSpare Parts\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eClaire L. Evans\u003c\/b\u003e is a writer and musician. She is the singer and coauthor of the pop group YACHT, and the founding editor of \u003ci\u003eTerraform\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eVICE\u003c\/i\u003e's science-fiction vertical. She is the former futures editor of \u003ci\u003eMotherboard\u003c\/i\u003e, and a contributor to\u003ci\u003e VICE\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eWIRED\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eAeon\u003c\/i\u003e; previously, she was a contributor to \u003ci\u003eGrantland\u003c\/i\u003e and wrote \u003ci\u003eNational Geographic\u003c\/i\u003e's popular culture and science blog, \u003ci\u003eUniverse\u003c\/i\u003e. She is an advisor to design students at Art Center College of Design and a member of the cyberfeminist collective Deep Lab. She lives in Los Angeles.Chapter One\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A Computer Wanted\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It's 1892 in New York City. In January, an immigration processing      center called Ellis Island opened for business. In March, in      Springfield, Massachusetts, a YMCA instructor desperate to keep a      class of stir-crazy youngsters entertained indoors hosted the      first public game of \"basket ball.\" But the winter is over, and      it's the first of May, just shy of spring, just shy of the      twentieth century. It's before the screen, the mouse, the byte,      the pixel, and one hundred years before my Dell, but there's a      strange notice in the classified pages of the New York Times.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"A Computer Wanted,\" it says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e This ad is the first instance of the word \"computer\" in print. It      wasn't placed by an indiscreet time-traveler, someone trapped in      the Gilded Age and jonesing for the familiar glow of their      MacBook. It was placed by the United States Naval Observatory in      Washington, DC, which was by then several decades into a      mathematical astronomy project: calculating, by hand, the      positions of the sun, stars, moon, and planets across the night      sky. The observatory's directors were not in the market, that      spring, to buy a computer. They were looking to hire one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e For close to two hundred years, a computer was a job. As in      someone who computes, or performs computations, for a living. Had      one been browsing the Times that May Day in 1892 and decided to      answer the classified ad, they'd soon be taking an algebra test.      The Naval Observatory job was cushy, relatively: those who lived      nearby worked in a cozy, informal office in Cambridge, far from      the observatory itself, which was perched on a bluff above the      Potomac. They clocked five-hour days, charting the skies from      individual tables by a roaring fire, pausing often to discuss the      scientific ideas of the day. The rest worked from home, from      detailed mathematical plans they received in the mail. Computing,      as one historian has noted, was the original cottage industry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Every day, these computers-much as computers do today-would chip      away at complicated, large-scale math problems. They wouldn't do      it alone. Our new hire would be part of a team: everyone crunching      their share of the numbers, some correcting each other's work for      extra income. With pen and paper alone, the Naval Observatory team      would chart the skies, just as other computing offices throughout      the Western world would advance ballistics, maritime navigation,      or pure mathematics. They wouldn't receive much individual credit,      but whatever the problem was, they'd have been instrumental in      solving it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Computing offices were thinking factories. The nineteenth-century      British mathematician Charles Babbage, whose desire to calculate      by steam led to important early developments in mechanical      computing, called what the human computing offices of his time did      \"mental labor.\" He considered it work one did with the brain, just      as hammering a nail is work one does with the arm. Indeed,      computing was the grunt labor of organized science; before they      were made obsolete, human computers prepared ballistics      trajectories for the United States Army, cracked Nazi codes at      Bletchley Park, crunched astronomical data at Harvard, and      assisted numerical studies of nuclear fission on the Manhattan      Project. Despite the diversity of their work, human computers had      one thing in common. They were women.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Mostly, anyway. The Naval Observatory hired only one female      computer for its Nautical Almanac Office, although she was by far      the most famous among them: Maria Mitchell, a Quaker from      Nantucket Island, who had won a medal from the king of Denmark      before she was thirty for discovering a new comet in the night      sky. It came to be known as \"Miss Mitchell's Comet.\" At the      observatory, Mitchell calculated the ephemeris of Venus, being, as      her supervisor told her, the only computer fair enough to tackle      the fairest of the planets.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Her presence as a woman in a computing group was unusual for its      time, but it would only become less so. Maria Mitchell discovered      her comet only a year before the Seneca Falls Conference on the      Rights of Women, which was largely organized by Quaker activists.      Her church was the sole religious denomination allowing women to      preach to its congregations, and Maria's father, an amateur      astronomer, lobbied aggressively for her accomplishments to be      recognized. Before the end of the twentieth century, computing      would become largely the purview of women. Female mental laborers,      breaking intractable problems down into numerical steps much as      machines tackle problems today, ushered in an era of large-scale      scientific research.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e By the mid-twentieth century, computing was so much considered a      woman's job that when computing machines came along, evolving      alongside and largely independently from their human counterparts,      mathematicians would guesstimate their horsepower by invoking      \"girl-years,\" and describe units of machine labor as equivalent to      one \"kilogirl.\" This is the story of the kilogirls. It begins, as      the most beautiful patterns do, with a loom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Spider Work\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The loom is a simple technology, but in the warp and weft of      thread lies the weaving of all technologically literate society.      Textiles are central to the business of being human, and like      software, they are encoded with meaning. Every cloth is a record      of its weaving, an interconnected matrix of skills, time,      materials, and personnel. As the British cultural theorist Sadie      Plant observes, \"the visible pattern\" of any cloth \"is integral to      the process which produced it; the program and the pattern are      continuous.\" This process, of course, historically concerns women.      Around looms, in sewing circles, in ancient Egypt and China, and      in southeastern Europe five centuries before Christianity, women      have woven clothing, shelter, the materials of writing, even      currency.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Like many accepted patterns, this was disrupted by the Industrial      Revolution, when a French weaver, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, proposed      a new way to create textile patterns. Unlike a traditional loom,      singularly animated by its weaver's ingenuity, Jacquard's      invention produced remarkably complex textiles from patterns      punched into paper cards, reproducible and consistent beyond a      margin of human error. The resulting damask, brocade, and quilted      matelassŽ became highly coveted all over Europe, but the impact of      Jacquard's loom went far beyond industrial textile production: his      punched cards, which separated pattern from process for the first      time in history, would eventually find their way into the earliest      computers. Patterns encoded on paper, which computer scientists      later called \"programs,\" could dictate numbers as easily as      thread.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Jacquard loom put skilled laborers out of work. Some took out      their anger on the frames of the new machines, claiming as a folk      hero the apocryphal Ned Ludd, a weaver said to have smashed a pair      of stocking-frames at the end of the previous century. We use the      term Luddite now in the pejorative, to describe anyone with an      unreasonable aversion to technology, but the cause was not      unpopular in its time. Even Lord Byron sympathized. In his maiden      speech to the House of Lords in 1812, he defended the organized      framebreakers by comparing the results of a Jacquard loom's      mechanical weaving to \"spider-work.\" Privately, he worried that,      in his sympathy for the Luddites, he might be taken as \"half a      framebreaker\" himself. He was, of course, not-and he was dead      wrong about the spider work, too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Even as Byron made his case, Jacquard looms were producing a      quality and volume of textiles unlike anything the world had ever      seen. The mathematician Charles Babbage owned a portrait of      Joseph-Marie Jacquard woven from thousands of silk threads using      twenty-four thousand punched cards, a weaving so intricate that it      was regularly mistaken for an engraving by his guests. And      although the portrait was a fine possession, it was the loom      itself, and its punch card programs, that really ignited Babbage's      imagination. \"It is a known fact,\" Babbage proclaimed, \"that the      Jacquard loom is capable of weaving any design which the      imagination of man may conceive.\" As long as imagination could be      translated into a pattern, it could be infinitely reproduced, in      any volume, in any material, in any combination of colors, without      degradation. Babbage understood the profundity of the      punched-paper program because mathematical formulae work the same      way: run them again and again, and they never change.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He was so taken with the Jacquard loom, in fact, that he spent the      better part of his life designing computing machines fed by punch      cards. To describe how these worked, he even adopted the language      of the textile factory, writing of a \"store\" to hold the numbers      and a \"mill\" where they could be processed, analogous to a modern      computer's memory and central processing unit. Numbers would move      through Babbage's machines, coming together as thread becomes      whole cloth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Babbage's machines-the Difference Engine, a hand-cranked      mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions,      and the more complex Analytical Engine-were so far ahead of their      time that they're generally considered historical anachronisms.      His mechanical designs required a level of technical precision      never before attempted, although the British government, for whom      mathematical tables were a point of national interest, was willing      to try. It funded construction of the Difference Engine in 1823,      with an initial grant of seventeen hundred pounds; by the time it      wrote off the project, nearly twenty years later, having spent ten      times as much, there was still nothing to show for what the prime      minister had by then determined to be a \"very costly toy,\" and      \"worthless as far as science is concerned,\" save some partial      models and four hundred square feet of confounding schematic      drawings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The machines made Babbage famous-and perhaps infamous-but very few      people alive in his time were mentally equipped to understand what      they were supposed to do, let alone how. One of those people was      Lord Byron's daughter, Ada. In her short life, she would make one      thing certain: that the spider work her father had so disdained      would proliferate, unstoppable.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Rays from Every Corner        of the Universe\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ada's alchemy was peculiar. She was the child of a passionate      yearlong marriage between Byron and a bright, mathematically      inclined aristocrat named Anne Isabella Milbanke, or Annabella.      Byron was, in a former lover's estimation, \"mad, bad, and      dangerous to know,\" his passions Romantic in every sense;      Annabella, on the other hand, was so sensible and well-bred that      Byron teasingly called her the \"Princess of Parallelograms.\" The      couple separated amid rumors that the louche Byron had a      more-than-fraternal relationship with his half sister Augusta.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Amid the scandal of that separation, the last thing Annabella      wanted was for Ada to inherit any of her father's wildness or to      suffer as a consequence of his notoriety. To keep her daughter on      the straight and narrow, Annabella began a rigorous course of      mathematical instruction from the time Ada was four years old.      Math-the opposite of poetry. Or so she thought.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Byron absconded to Italy shortly after Ada's birth. He never made      her acquaintance, although he inquired after her often. \"Is the      Girl imaginative?\" he wrote to Augusta, knowing full well that      Annabella, who kept their daughter purposefully secluded, would      divulge nothing directly. Byron died unromantically of the flu in      Greece in 1824, when Ada was only nine. As he died, he called to      his valet, \"Oh, my poor dear child! My dear Ada! My God, could I      have seen her! Give her my blessing!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e His body was returned to England by ship, and huge crowds gathered      in the streets of London to see his funeral procession of      forty-seven carriages. When Ada finally learned her father's name,      she wept for him, although it doesn't appear that she or her      mother held his legacy in high esteem-Byron's portrait, in their      home, was concealed under heavy drapery until Ada was twenty. But      his mercurial spirit was alive in her. \"I do not believe that my      father was (or ever could have been) such a Poet as I shall be an      Analyst; (\u0026amp; Metaphysician),\" she wrote to Charles Babbage      later in life, \"for with me the two go together indissolubly.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ada's sharp analytical mind was inflected by a wild imagination.      Prevented from a formal university education by her gender, she      thrived under private tutelage. A precocious and very lonely      child, she designed flying machines and marched around the      billiard table playing violin. She was also frequently ill, prone      to episodes of what was then called hysteria, and barely survived      a serious three-year bout of measles, during which Annabella took      advantage of her daughter's bedridden condition to double down on      schoolwork. But Ada was indomitable, agitated, and charismatic,      and when she outpaced-and in one case, seduced-her tutors, she      educated herself with books and through correspondence with some      of nineteenth-century England's most illustrious minds.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She was only a teenager when she struck up a close friendship with      the well-known scientist Mary Somerville, who would answer her      questions and encourage her studies. The logician Augustus De      Morgan sent her problems by post, only to be astounded by the      power of thinking represented in her responses. Had she been a      man, he marveled, her \"aptitude for grasping the strong points and      the real difficulties of first principles\" would have made her \"an      original mathematical investigator, perhaps of first rate      eminence.\" She did not shrink away from difficulty, and she had a      peculiar way of learning: she questioned the basic principles of      mathematics to drill down to their fundamental meaning and      understand them completely.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ada first met Charles Babbage when she and her mother went to see      his Difference Engine, the first of his very expensive, very      unfinished mathematical machines, in London. She was seventeen;      Babbage was forty-two. He displayed the machine-a piece of it,      anyway-in a salon where he hosted Saturday-night soirŽes that      attracted the most prominent names in society: Charles Darwin,      Michael Faraday, Charles Dickens, the Duke of Wellington. It      wasn't long after Ada's ritual debut in court, where she had worn      satin and tulle and made whispered pronouncements to her mother      about the various dukes to whom she was presented: Wellington, she      liked, and the Duke of Orleans, too, but the Duke of Talleyrand?      He was an \"old monkey.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ada diligently made the rounds, but she held her social      obligations in low esteem. She was, however, immediately      mesmerized by Babbage's machine, a hulking block of interlinked      brass gears and cogs. \"While other visitors gazed at the working      of this beautiful instrument with the sort of expression, and I      dare say the sort of feeling, that some savages are said to have      shown on first seeing a looking-glass or hearing a gun,\" wrote an      onlooker, \"Miss Byron, young as she was, understood its working,      and saw the great beauty of the invention.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Not long afterward, Ada became Ada Augusta King, after her      marriage to a sensible aristocrat a decade her senior, and then,      three years later, her husband's peerage elevated, the Countess of      Lovelace. By the age of twenty-four, she'd borne three      children-one, a son, named after her father-and was managing her      family's homes in Surrey and London, but she continued to study      mathematics every day, and she remained fascinated by the      Difference Engine.","brand":"Portfolio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304858964197,"sku":"NP9780593329443","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780593329443.jpg?v=1767723093","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/broad-band-isbn-9780593329443","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}