{"id":7362,"date":"2026-09-03T12:21:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T02:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/?p=7362"},"modified":"2026-09-03T12:21:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T02:21:11","slug":"grace-hopper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/women-who-built-the-future\/grace-hopper\/","title":{"rendered":"GRACE HOPPER"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>THE NAVY RETIRED HER AT 60. EIGHT MONTHS LATER THEY WANTED HER BACK.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There may be no better woman with whom to finish this series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Grace Hopper helped pioneer the world of computer programming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A mathematician who joined the US Navy Reserve during the Second World War, Hopper worked with some of the earliest large-scale computers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But she had an idea that would help transform computing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Programming shouldn't remain trapped in obscure machine instructions understandable only to a tiny number of specialists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Computers needed languages that humans could use more easily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hopper became one of the pioneers of the <strong>compiler<\/strong> \u2014 software capable of translating more human-readable instructions into something a computer could execute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Her work contributed to the development of programming languages and she played an important role in the emergence of <strong>COBOL<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then came 1966.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Grace Hopper reached <strong>60<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Navy's age rules forced her into retirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Apparently that was that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Except the Navy had a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Its growing collection of computer systems and programming languages needed somebody who understood how to bring order to the chaos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eight months later, the Pentagon called.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Would Grace Hopper come back?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of course she would.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hopper returned to active duty and remained in uniform until <strong>1986<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She finally retired at <strong>79 years old<\/strong>, by then a rear admiral and the oldest commissioned officer serving in the US Navy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That is where we'll finish our three weeks of <strong>Women Who Built the Future<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not with a woman whose best years were supposedly behind her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But with a woman whose employer retired her because of her age...<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>and then discovered they still needed her expertise.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perhaps that's the perfect introduction to what comes next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>WRINKLES IN THE FABRIC<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>with Dr Kathryn Spurling<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Conversations with remarkable women over 55.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Women who built things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Changed things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Survived things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Led things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Discovered things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And still have plenty left to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A woman's story doesn't end at 55.<br>Sometimes that's where it gets interesting.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The US Naval History and Heritage Command records Hopper's pioneering compiler work, her forced retirement at 60, recall to active service months later, and final retirement at 79.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Called back at 61<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7363,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-women-who-built-the-future"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7364,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7362\/revisions\/7364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}