"This is a radically important, timely work," says Miranda July, filmmaker and author of The First Bad Man. The history of the internet is more than just alpha nerds, brogrammers, and male garage-to-riches billionaires. Female visionaries have always been at the vanguard of technology and innovation. In 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. In a world where tech companies are still male-dominated and women are often dissuaded from STEM careers, Broad Band shines a much-needed light on the bright minds history forgot, from pioneering database poets, data wranglers, and hypertext dreamers to glass ceiling-shattering dot com-era entrepreneurs. Get to know Ada Lovelace, who wove the first computer program in 1842, and Grace Hopper, the tenacious mathematician who democratized computing after World War II. Meet Elizabeth "Jake" Feinler, the one-woman Google who kept the earliest version of the Internet online, and Stacy Horn, the New York cyberpunk who ran one of the world's earliest social networks out of her New York City apartment in the 1980s. Join the ranks of the pioneers who defied social convention to become leaders of the tech revolution. This electrifying corrective to tech history introduces us all to our long-overlooked tech mothers and grandmothers--showing us that if there's a "boy's club" that dominates Silicon Valley today, it's an anachronism.

 

Details

ISBN: 9780593329443
Audience: General
Format: Paperback
Number of Pages: 288
Publication Date: 9 Jul 2020
Publisher: Random House USA Inc
Publication City, Country: United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 21(H) x 13.8(L)

 

Reviews

An insightful, intelligent observer...Evans proves a companionable guide for a tour through cyberspace...[and] provide[s] much needed perspective. --New York Times

"Broad Band 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. --Wall Street Journal

A jaunty new history of women in computing. --WIRED

"A spirited collection of portraits of women who contributed to the infrastructure of the digital economy." --Wall Street Journal

In this inspiring tale, writer Evans chronicles the contributions of some of the many women who aided the rise of the modern Internet. --Scientific American

"An invigorating history of female coders, engineers, entrepreneurs, and visionaries who helped create and shape the internet." --Publishers Weekly

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 Hidden Figures. --Kirkus

A "fascinating and inspiring work of women's history." --Booklist

"Broad Band is the Our Bodies, Ourselves 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."
--MIRANDA JULY, filmmaker, artist, and author of The First Bad Man

"Broad Band is such an interesting secret history, written with great panache."
--JON RONSON, author of The Psychopath Test and So You've Been Publicly Shamed

"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."
--ELLEN ULLMAN, author of Life in Code, Close to the Machine, and The Bug

"Broad Band 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."
--BRIAN MERCHANT, author of The One Device

"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."
--JOSHUA DAVIS, author of Spare Parts

 

Author Biography

Claire L. Evans is a writer and musician. She is the singer and coauthor of the Grammy-nominated pop group YACHT, and the founding editor of Terraform, VICE's science-fiction vertical.

She is the former futures editor of Motherboard, and a contributor to VICE, Rhizome, The Guardian, WIRED, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Eye on Design, and Aeon.

She is an advisor to graduate design students at Art Center College of Design. She lives in Los Angeles.