"The grand lady of software" (12/30/99) Admiral Grace Hopper, who led the Navy into the age of computers, was born in New York City on Dec. 9, 1906. Like Maria Mitchell, she had a father who encouraged her to study whatever she wanted. So she majored in math at Vassar, went to Yale and got a Masters and a Ph.D. and returned to Vassar as an associate professor in mathematics. In 1943 she went into the Navy and was assigned to the ordnance computation project at Harvard, where she worked on the first computer in the United States, the Mark I. She later noted that, "This miracle of modern science could store 72 words and perform three additions every second." She later worked on the Univac 1--about half the size and operating a thousand times faster! And she then went on to faster and more sophisticated computers until she died in 1992. Grace Hopper ... came to be called the "Grand Lady of Software," "Amazing Grace," and "Grandma COBOL." After World War II she left active duty and worked for Sperry Rand on the Univac I, but she stayed in the naval reserves and retired in 1966 at the age of 60. She didn't stay retired very long, because in 1967 she was recalled to active duty and promoted to captain by President Lyndon Johnson. In 1983 she was given flag rank as a commodore and in 1985 she was promoted to Rear Admiral,
Grace Hopper Special Collections, Vassar College Libraries
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