Ada Lovelace is known as a computer pioneer extraordinaire and the first ever computer programmer. She is celebrated for her efforts in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). Here is a little bit more about Ada Lovelace.

  • She was born on December 10, 1815 and was the daughter of the Romantic Poet Lord Byron.
  • Her birth name was Augusta Ada Byron.
  • Ada’s mother was also a mathematician whose nickname was “Princess of Parallelograms”.
  • Due to the controversy of Lord Byron’s relationships, Lady Byron made Ada pursue science and math instead of the arts for fear she would turn out like her father.
  • At age 12, she became fixated on how things flew. She studied and learned about the anatomy of birds and wrote a book called Flyology.
  • Due to Ada’s brilliant mind she was popular among high society.
  • She married at the age of 19, in 1835, to William, 8th Baron King. Her new title became Lady King.
  • She enjoyed the company of Charles Dickens and Michael Faraday.
  • Ada wrote the first published computer program in 1842. At the time, it was called the Analytical Engine. Unfortunately, her program never had the opportunity to be tested and was never completed. The program was considered too pioneering for its time.
  • Ada was also a writer, and liked to consider her field of work as “poetical science”. She once wrote, 
  • ““We may say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves”.
  • She fell ill in the 1850s, and was told she had uterine cancer. 
  • Three months after her diagnosis, on November 27, 1852 she lost her battle and died at the age of 36. Her father was also 36 when he died, and they were buried next to each other in St. Magdalene Church.

Here are some short children’s biographies you can check out at the Floyd County Library.

Dreaming in Code: Ada Byron Lovelace, Computer Engineer by Emily Arnold McCully

  • An award-winning author presents an illuminating biography of Ada Lovelace, the brilliant daughter of Lord Byron, Britain’s most infamous Romantic poet, who is now recognized as a pioneer and prophet of the information age for her ideas and concepts, formulated in collaboration with inventor Charles Babbage, that presaged computer programming by almost 200 years.

Ada’s Ideas: The Story of Ada Lovelace, the World’s First Computer by Fiona Robinson

Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) was the daughter of Lord Byron, a poet, and Anna Isabella Milbanke, a mathematician. Her parents separated when she was young, and her mother insisted on a logic-focused education, rejecting Byron’s “mad” love of poetry. But Ada remained fascinated with her father and considered mathematics “poetical science.” Via her friendship with inventor Charles Babbage, she became involved in “programming” his Analytical Engine, a precursor to the computer, thus becoming the world’s first computer programmer. This picture book biography of Ada Lovelace is a compelling portrait of a woman who saw the potential for numbers to make art.

Ada Lovelace: Poet of Science, The First Computer Programmer by Diane Stanley

Two hundred years ago, a daughter was born to the famous poet, Lord Byron, and his mathematical wife, Annabella.

Like her father, Ada had a vivid imagination and a creative gift for connecting ideas in original ways. Like her mother, she had a passion for science, math, and machines. It was a very good combination. Ada hoped that one day she could do something important with her creative and nimble mind.

A hundred years before the dawn of the digital age, Ada Lovelace envisioned the computer-driven world we know today. And in demonstrating how the machine would be coded, she wrote the first computer program. She would go down in history as Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer.

Who Says Women Can’t Be Computer Programmers?: The Story of Ada Lovelace by Tanya Lee Stone

In the early nineteenth century lived Ada Byron: a young girl with a wild and wonderful imagination. The daughter of internationally acclaimed poet Lord Byron, Ada was tutored in science and mathematics from a very early age. But Ada’s imagination was never meant to be tamed and, armed with the fundamentals of math and engineering, she came into her own as a woman of ideas–equal parts mathematician and philosopher. From her whimsical beginnings as a gifted child to her most sophisticated notes on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, this book celebrates the woman recognized today as the first computer programmer.

Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine by Laurie Wallmark

Ada Lovelace, the daughter of the famous romantic poet, Lord Byron, develops her creativity through science and math. When she meets Charles Babbage, the inventor of the first mechanical computer, Ada understands the machine better than anyone else and writes the world’s first computer program in order to demonstrate its capabilities.

I hope you have enjoyed learning more about Ada Lovelace!

Happy Reading!