I read about Ada Lovelace and put together some thoughts and notes.
Ada Lovelace was a brilliant mathematician. She wrote the first algorithm for Charles Babbage’s analytical engine and had the insight to realize it could be used for more than simple calculations.
In her article discussing Lovelace, Sadie Plant asserts that because women were the foundation of the textile industry, they provided the basis for the development of the computer. She draws attention to the contributions of Ada Lovelace-who wrote the algorithm for the proposed Analytical engine-and Grace Hopper-who created the first computer programming language.
She also points out the prejudice and misogyny that prevented the acknowledgement of these contributions as significant.
Freud’s fantasies about female penis envy exemplify the attitudes that Plant attributes to men at that time in general. While, not every man may have justified the social construction of women as less with sexually-based philosophy, it was generally accepted that women were, as a rule, weaker and less capable than men. Evidence from the chapter includes the classification of Lovelace as eccentric, wayward and hysterical. Evidence from outside the chapter includes the women who programmed ENIAC and were not recognized for their work. Software was not considered difficult and programming not prestigious, so women got to do it.
I felt confused by the way Plant associates women with the development of the technology that supports the textile industry.
- Spindle and wheel -> basis for axle and wheel and rotations
- Canvasses underlie art
- Writing is inked onto a woven substrate
Women were the textile artists who were developing the styles and the techniques. I am unsure about crediting them with technological innovations. Did they invent the tech or did they provide the hands to use it? They were part of the motivation to create it, but so was the need for textiles. When I reflected with my friends, they helped me realize that the big inventions that history has attributed to men cannot be considered in isolation from all the small inventions or improvements that the people using the machines the most would have come up with. I still don’t know if I agree with Plant completely, but there is a case for her argument.
I made connections between the textile industry and global systems of economy. The cotton market created a new class of bourgeoisie: merchants and owners. The Industrial Revolution resulted from the knitting machine taking the work out of the individual producers’ hands. While everyone used to make their own clothing, handmade products are more likely to be seen as indie art now.