So I was kind of calculating in my head the awesome personages involved in steampunk, right after Queen Victoria, who isn’t even a steampunk personage–the era is named after her because she ruled so bloody long–and I was trying to see if who we could look up to, all told.
And like in many other fields, the names of men generally dominate the lists of greats, and there aren’t many. It’s a bit depressing. So today, I want to devote a bit of attention to Lady Ada, born Augusta Ada Byron, later Countess of Lovelace, actual girl genius of the Victorian era.
Sydney Padua has a pretty good brief biography of Ada Lovelace, which you should totally go read if you haven’t already. Wait, we’ve already said that. Never mind, I’ll say it again!
Ada Lovelace is best known for being the first person to see the potential of the prototype computers Charles Babbages was cooking up as tools beyond mere calculating machines. She was a whiz at mathematics, and wrote a program for a machine that Babbage never ended up building. As such, she’s now recognized as being the “first computer programmer,” even writing up a sketch of the Analytical Engine that Babbage never built. Babbage himself referred to her as the Enchantress of Numbers (n’aww, so dreamy!).
Which is pretty remarkable, if you consider the amount of macho nonsense that goes on in most computer programming circles today.
Ada Lovelace had her faults, of course. She loved gambling, and I’m sure she was ghastly to some people in her life. In the Difference Engine, she’s depicted as a drug addict and compulsive gambler. 
There’s a movie about her called Conceiving Ada, directed by Lynn Hershmann Leeson, starring Tilda Swinton as Ada Lovelace. A new movie will be airing on the PBS channel in the States called Byron and Babbage: A Calculating Story, which is a sort of documentary based on Ada Lovelace’s letters.
There is a Lovelace Medal awarded by the British Computing Society to people who contribute significantly to the field of Information Systems, and the United States Department of Defense’s computer language is named Ada after her.
March 24th is Ada Lovelace Day! It was started this year in order to recognize the contributions of women in the field of [any kind of] technology. With any luck, it’ll be an annual event.
Because Ada Lovelace is kick-ass. Not only did she invent computer programming, she was also one of the first people to understand that mental illnesses were neurological disorders, and spent a great deal of her time towards her death researching neuroscience.
I know this hasn’t really been a very steampunk-y post, what with the reminder that Lady Ada Lovelace died when she was only 36, but you know, we hear about Charles Babbage everywhere in the steam-realm, and we can’t have a conversation about Charles Babbage without Lady Ada, okay? Because she was the first person to ever make sense of his big idea that was way ahead of his time, and she was way ahead of her time too.
I hope you all enjoyed the links!
Jha used to love math but cannot really perform any complicated equations to save her own life. So she settles for admiring women who can.
Ada Lovelace IS the Queen of Steampunk. She is one of the most fascinating people that lived in the 19th Century by far.
Not only did she invent computer programming, she was also one of the first people to understand that mental illnesses were neurological disorders, and spent a great deal of her time towards her death researching neuroscience.
Which would make her not only the first computer programmer, but the first cognitive scientist.
Great post!
Do you like comics – web comics? Then you should have a look at The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage.
Thank you for the links–I want to see the PBS special now.
Actually, it depends on what part of the “steam-realm” you inhabit! The assorted Steamlands of Second Life certainly have a very high estimation of Lady Ada, and Ada Lovelace Day was widely celebrated.
VernianProces: Yeah, too bad there’s so little known about her! Ah well. We’ll just have to rely on pocket dimensions.
R Emrys: Isn’t she amazing?!
ediFanoB: I DID mention Sydney Padua (who draws said thrilling adventures) in my post :P I’ll also be writing a post about the comic (as well as interogating the artist) very soon! (Actualy, it’s about done, just need her to OK some things.)
SJ Chambers: Yeah! And if you could, definitely spread word of it and try to write a letter of support!
kenneth: Aha! I know nothing of Second Life. Ada Lovelace Day was widely celebrated in the feminist blogosphere that I inhabit, too!
Ada Lovelace is truly an icon of steampunk, easily as much as Babbage, Stephenson, Tesla and the rest.
However, I don’t think one should dismiss Queen Victoria as a “steampunk personage” so readily. Granted, she never invented anything, but she ruled over the most scientifically advanced nation in the world at the time and her reign saw the shift in Britain to the modern middle class dominated constitutional monarchy we see today (and of course, the dominance of the middle class is very important in steampunk because they’re the primary movers in industrialization). And we cannot forget that the Great Exhibition occurred during her reign as well. Really, while not a scientist or inventor herself, Queen Victoria is a very important person in both the historical steam age and in the steampunk genre.
I have great respect for Queen Victoria’s reign, but in my mind’s eye, she, herself, was not a mover or a shaker – she was the steward of the era (and a damned fine one), a solid rock, but not the wind nor waves. If I were to seek a role model from Victorian England for steampunk, I would look more to someone like Lady Ada than to Her Majesty.
However, I should like to see fiction which involves Queen Victoria more personally than most fiction dares. But then, I’ve always been a fan of both Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth I.