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Two Nineteenth Century Women |
During the Nineteenth Century in Victorian England, despite the fact that a woman's role was to marry, be subservient to her husband and avoid occupational ambitions, two women, both born of upper class parents, went against the general consensus and made contributions to society. Today we remember Lady Ada Lovelace as the first computer programmer and Florence Nightingale as the founder of modern nursing. Both, however, were mathematicians!
December 10, 1815 - November 27, 1852
Lady Lovelace was born Ada Byron, and was the daughter of the poet Lord Byron. Her parents separated while she was a baby and her mother, fearful that her daughter would become a poet like her father, worked very hard to bring her up to be a mathematician and scientist, although she was never able to completely erase her poetical inclinations (Toole, 1995).
She developed into an excellent mathematician, and met Charles Babbage, the developer of the "first computer" at a dinner party. Her poetical nature combined with her mathematical genius led her to become fascinated by Babbage's ideas and work, and she started a lengthy friendship with him. (Toole, 1995).. Through this friendship and interest in his work she foresaw that a computer might be used to compose complex music as well as produce graphics. Often regarded as the first computer programmer, Lady Lovelace wrote a plan for how Babbage's differential engine might calculate Bernoulli numbers. Unfortunately, Lady Lovelace's life was plagued with illness and she died at the age of 36. In 1979 the US Department of Defense named a software language Ada in her honor.
May 12, 1820 - August 13, 1910
Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy, although she grew up in England where her parents had several homes (Hagen). Her upbringing included frequent travel and a classical education including languages, history, and mathematics (Audain, 1998). She was tutored in mathematics by family members and a prominent English mathematician of the time.
We are all aware of Ms. Nightingale's great contributions to nursing and nursing education, but what sometimes gets overlooked is her use of then new techniques of statistical analysis to give momentum to her ideas.
In the Crimea she collected data and systematized record-keeping practices (Audain, 1998). To dramatize the needless deaths caused by the unsanitary conditions in military hospitals and the need for reform she developed the pie graph to present her data.
Ms. Nightingale believed that social phenomena could be measured objectively and subjected to statistical analysis, a revolutionary idea at the time. Besides demonstrating that statistics could lead to improvements in health care practices, she developed a form for hospitals to collect and generate data and statistics.
Two women, both contributors to society. It is interesting to speculate what would have happened if Lady Lovelace and Florence Nightingale become friends. Both had great vision, and both were ahead of their times.
If Ms Nightingale were alive today, it is highly likely that she would be one of the leaders in using computers for nursing. When you read the chapters on data bases and nursing classification systems, keep in mind that nursing is building on the ideas and thoughts of Ms. Nightingale.
References
Audain, C. (1998). Florence Nightingale. Available online at http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/nitegale.htm. Retrieved September 4, 1999.
Toole., B. (1995). Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace. Available online at http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/love.htm Retrieved September 4, 1999.
Last Updated: July 31, 2004
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