Words by Dayna Brownfield
Artwork by Ann Shen

Walking down the rows of laptops, tablets and iPods at my local big-box electronics store, I am amazed at the tiny devices’ power and ingenuity. I grew up with computer-integrated classrooms and heard stories from my grandfather who, in the 60s and 70s, held meetings with his boss about “these new computer contraptions that can calculate large equations for the company.”

What you may not realize is that the creation of the computer began long before the twentieth century. In 1834, Ada Lovelace, a 19-year-old Englishwoman, took some of the first steps towards developing the fundamentals of modern computer programming.

To read more about Ada Lovelace, subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.