-
Born in New York City to parents Walter Fletcher Murray and Mary Campbell Van Horne (Williams, "Grace Hopper : Admiral of the Cyber Sea" 14).
-
Hopper attended Vassar College, where she majored in mathematics, a subject in which she showed exceptional promise, and supplemented her studies with coursework in physics and economics (Auel 331; Williams, "Improbable Warriors" 39).
Image Credit: Vassar Class of 1928. Vassar College Encyclopedia. -
After earning her undergraduate degree, Hopper pursued graduate studies at Yale University, where she received her M.A. in mathematics in 1930 and her Ph.D. in 1934, a rare achievement for women at the time (Auel 331; Williams, "Improbable Warriors" 39).
Image credit: National Archives. -
In 1931, she accepted a mathematics teaching position at Vassar, which paid $800 a year. During her thirteen years on the Vassar faculty, she thrived. Her classes gained popularity thanks to her creativity and outgoing personality; for example, she invented a fictional country to enliven a traditionally dull mechanical drawing course (“Grace Murray Hopper ’1928”).
Image Credit: Grace Murray at Vassar. Vassar College Encyclopedia. -
For Hopper, the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the nation’s mobilization for war were decisive. Eager to play a role in the war effort, she took a leave of absence from Vassar to join the Navy’s WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service). She attended training at the Midshipmen’s School for Women at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, graduating first in her class. (Auel 331; Williams, "Improbable Warriors" 39).
Image Credit: Smithsonian Institution. -
Upon completing midshipmen’s school, Hopper was assigned to the Navy’s Computation Project at Harvard University. There, working under Howard Aiken, she became one of the first programmers for the cutting-edge Mark I computer, helping revolutionize both military technology and the emerging discipline of computer science (Auel 333; Williams, "Improbable Warriors" 39).
Image Credit: U.S. Department of Defense. -
"The First Computer Bug Moth found trapped between points at Relay # 70, Panel F, of the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator while it was being tested at Harvard University, 9 September 1945. The operators affixed the moth to the computer log, with the entry: First actual case of bug being found. They put out the word that they had debugged the machine, thus introducing the term debugging a computer program" (“The First ‘Computer Bug’”).
Image Credit: Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. -
Following the war, Hopper chose not to return to Vassar, despite being offered a full professorship in mathematics, and instead stayed at the Computation Lab working as a research fellow. In 1949, facing a lack of advancement, a common issue for women during that period, she was forced to leave her position (Williams, "Grace Hopper : Admiral of the Cyber Sea" 42).
Image Credit: U.S. Department of Defense -
Hopper became an employee of the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC) as a senior mathematician and joined the team developing the UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer I). At EMCC, she confronted the tedious nature of low-level programming. She pioneered the concept of the compiler, a program that translates human-readable instructions into machine code. (Auel 334; Williams, "Improbable Warriors" 40).
Image Credit: Smithsonian Institute -
“Between October 1951 and May 1952, Hopper created the first compiler, the A-0 (A for Algebraic). She had written every instruction herself, by hand, and she reported on it at the Association for Computing Machinery’s annual meeting at the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh that May.” (Williams, "Grace Hopper : Admiral of the Cyber Sea" 14)
Image Credit: Courtesy of the CHM -
The innovation of the A-0 compiler set the stage for even more ambitious work: the creation of Flow-Matic, the first English-like data processing language. Flow-Matic directly inspired COBOL (COmmon Business-Oriented Language), the standard business programming language that remains in use today (Auel 334-335).
Image Credit: Vassar College -
The Navy’s attrition regulations required Hopper to retire at the age of 60. However, she was recalled to active duty 6 months later in 1967 at the request of Norman Ream, Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy for Automatic Data Processing (Computer History Museum).
Image Credit: Vassar College -
Ream recalled Hopper in 1967 to develop software standards, crucial for reducing system conversion costs. She served as director of the Navy Programming Section of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, overseeing Navy programming languages and language standards from 1967 to 1976. (Computer History Museum)
Image Credit: Captain Grace Hopper at work in her Washington, D.C. office. National Archives -
Hopper served as Special Advisor to the Commander of the Naval Data Automation Command, heading the Training and Technology Directorate. During this time, Hopper achieved rare promotions: Captain (1973), Commodore (1983), and Rear Admiral (1985), a first for a woman. In 1986, Hopper, then the Navy’s oldest officer, retired in a ceremony aboard the USS Constitution (Computer History Museum).
Image Credit: President Ronald Reagan greets CAPT. Grace Hopper. National Archives -
Hopper passed away at the age of 85 and was interred at Arlington National Cemetery. Hopper’s legacy is felt across the technical, institutional, and social dimensions of computing. Her crucial inventions, the compiler, Flow-Matic, and COBOL, remain foundational, with millions of lines of COBOL code still running global financial and governmental systems today (Auel 334-335).
Image Credit: Joel C. Adams