To celebrate Women’s History Month, we look back at some of the female pioneers who helped shape the world of business computing and COBOL. Learn and celebrate with us!
Celebrating Women’s History Month by Exploring the Women of COBOL History
Women’s History Month is a “celebration of women’s contributions to history, culture, and society,” contributions that are often overlooked or forgotten. It has been celebrated every March since 1989, while International Women's Day (March 8) has been observed and sponsored by the United Nations since 1975, “to acknowledge the contribution of women to the strengthening of international peace and security.”
When I joined Micro Focus in January, I dove headfirst into a new (to me) world of computer science, information technology, programming languages, and more. During my first few weeks, Micro Focus published results from a global survey that revealed over 800 billion lines of COBOL still in use. I didn’t know why that was a significant number or why it was a big deal, so I decided to learn a little bit about the history of COBOL—which was developed in in 1959 by no small contribution from incredibly intelligent women. I’ve gathered what I learned about these women in celebration of Women’s History Month below:
Mary K. Hawes:
Mary K. Hawes is credited with identifying the need for a common business language in accounting--one that could run on different computers and perform payroll calculations, inventory control, and records of credits and debits. In March 1959, she called for computer users and manufacturers to create this new computer language.
Mary approached Grace Hopper with the proposal, who suggested that they ask the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for funding. Charles Philips, an employee at the DOD, agreed, and in May 1959, 40 representatives of computer users and computer manufacturers met and formed the Short Range Committee of the Conference on Data Systems Languages (CODASYL).[2] Mary was the chair of the data descriptions subcommittee, the team that identified problems with the current business compliers.
Grace Hopper:
Grace Hopper, the “Queen of Computer Code,” was a computer pioneer and an officer in the U.S. Navy. She is known for her contributions to the development of computer programming languages, like COBOL. Hopper helped program the Mark I, Mark II and Mark III computers at Harvard, worked on top secret calculations for the war effort while in the Navy, worked on the UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer), and helped developed the first computer language “compiler” called A-0 and Flow-Matic. In 1959, Grace helped to develop COBOL, or “common business-oriented language” as part of a US Department of Defense effort to create a portable programming language for data processing.
After the development of COBOL, Hopper promoted its adoption and developed compliers for COBOL, and it became the most extensively used computer language in the world. Hopper is credited with being the person most responsible for COBOL’s success. Grace Hopper had many other accomplishments and honors before retiring as a rear admiral in 1979 and passing in 1992.
Jean Sammet:
“I thought of a computer as some obscene piece of hardware that I wanted nothing to do with,” Ms. Sammet recalled in an interview in 2000. “To my utter astonishment,” she said, “I loved it.”
Jean Sammet was one of the original designers of COBOL and the first woman to serve as president of the ACM (Association for Computer Machinery). Sammet had a long history of fighting gender discrimination—she couldn’t go to Bronx High School for Science, so found Mount Holyoke to study Math. She couldn’t find a teaching job in New York, so she tried New Jersey, and when they insisted she take a New Jersey history course, she argued it wasn’t relevant to her job as a math teacher and she went to Sperry Gyroscope instead, where she supervised the first scientific programming group.
Sammet then moved on to Sylvania, where she worked as a staff consultant for programming research and became a member of the original COBOL group before moving on to IBM. There, she developed FORMAC and researched the use of restricted English as a programming language and the use of natural language for mathematical programs.
Sammet published Programming Languages: History and Fundamentals, which contains a description of the programming languages being used in the U.S. as of the late 1960s. She passed in 2017, and the New York Times wrote a beautiful obituary filled with details of her life. Read it here.
A New Generation of #WomenofCobol
Mary Hawes, Grace Hopper, and Jean Sammet are just a few of the millions of women who have contributed to the advancement of humanity, technology, and international peace and security. In just the world of computer history alone, they join the ranks of Ada Lovelace, Mary Allen Wilkes, Katherine Johnson, Margaret Hamilton, Stephanie Shirley, and hundreds of women who were considered “human computers”—including nearly 80 black women employed by NASA in the 1960s.
Today, less than 20 percent of degrees in Computer Science and Engineering are earned by women. Many organizations, including Micro Focus, are working toward change by encouraging and recruiting girls in middle school and high school to take STEM courses. For young girls, maybe learning about the trailblazers and pioneers that made computers what they are today will help them to dream of a career in science, technology, engineering or mathematics. If anything, it could certainly help them to believe that they are capable of anything they set their mind to. Grace Hopper, Mary Hawes, Jean Sammet and hundreds of other women in history had to fight for the right to learn, work, and be respected and esteemed by their male colleagues, and they have certainly paved the way for women and girls today to be or do anything they want.
Learn more:
Awards at GHC Awards and Programs | Grace Hopper Celebration (anitab.org)
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