Celebrating Ada Lovelace Day and the women who made the internet

October 13, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Ada Lovelace Day, observed annually, celebrates the contributions of women to computing and technology. This episode of Science Friday revisits a 2018 conversation with author Claire Evans and early internet pioneer Stacy Horn to recover the stories of the women who built the internet—not as a footnote to a male-dominated narrative, but as essential architects of its structure, culture, and accessibility. The conversation moves from the earliest programmable computers to the first social networks, revealing a pattern: women were present, often in charge, and systematically written out of the history as the field professionalized.

The Erasure of Women from Computing History

The episode opens with a central puzzle: why have women’s contributions to the internet been so thoroughly forgotten? Claire Evans, author of Broadband: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet, explains that the internet’s origins in the Department of Defense and elite academic computer science created a male-dominated infrastructure. But women found ways to work within those spaces anyway. The problem was that their work was not seen as legitimate.

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What you'll learn

1 (00:00) **Advertisements** - Show opens with sponsor messages for MathWorks, Odoo, and the Met.
2 (01:20) **Introduction: Celebrating Ada Lovelace Day** - Ira introduces the episode's theme, honoring women pioneers in computing and the internet, including Ada Lovelace and Margaret Hamilton.
3 (03:05) **Why Women Were Left Out of Internet History** - Evans discusses the structural reasons for the erasure of women's contributions to the internet.
4 (04:05) **Grace Hopper: Bootlegging Programming and Inventing the Compiler** - The conversation turns to Grace Hopper, a key figure in early programming.
5 (06:08) **The ENIAC Programmers and the Devaluation of Software** - The discussion covers the women who programmed the ENIAC computer and why their work was not credited for 50 years.
6 (07:52) **Elizabeth "Jake" Feinler: The One-Woman Google** - Evans details Feinler's role in organizing the early internet.
7 (08:32) **Reframing the Narrative: Underdogs, Not Just Great Women** - Evans clarifies her approach to the history, focusing on adding complexity rather than just countering "great man history."

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

This year, October 13 marks Ada Lovelace Day, an observance that calls attention to the role of women in computing and technology. In this conversation from 2018, Ira talks with Claire Evans, author of “Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet,” about some of the women who played key roles in the development of computing. Then, Stacy Horn joins the conversation to describe her creation, EchoNYC, an early bulletin board service.

Guests:

Claire L. Evans is the author of “Broad Band: The Women Who Made The Internet.”

Stacy Horn is the founder of EchoNYC in New York, New York.

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