Ana Olivia

This book was recommended by Benji.dog for the month of June. I was a bit hesitant in picking up this book due to my limited knowledge in computer language and all of the behind the scenes of what makes the digital world work. However, I established a goal at the beginning of 2026 to learn, and later, apply it into customizing (maybe even building) my website. What better way to begin to understand this new realm than by reading its history through the female perspective?

Writer Claire L. Evans shares the stories of women whose work have been overshadowed during the birth and evolution of the internet. For some chapters, I read the physical book during my downtime and lunch at work, then decided to purchase the book on audible in order for me to listen while I traveled for work. I really enjoyed the historical context of given in the starting chapters; when the word “computer” referred to a person, not the machine. It was reminiscent of my time in honors algebra in the beginning of high school, where my teacher would repeat “Tu calculas y computas en papel, no por teclado” (you calculate and compute through paper, not by typing) when students began to pull out their TI-83 calculators or phones.

I appreciated chapters seven to ten, focused more on building digital communities that shared interests, user engagement, and how the evolution of the internet affected them. The four women who worked on the Resource One, where they noticed social problems in their community were able to use their skills to provide in-real time information on essential resources that otherwise would have been left unknown. Radia Perlman and Elizabeth “Jake” Feinler’s roles in modern internet through their work on the ARPANET demonstrated that their skills, both in programming and organizational, laid the groundwork that ultimately became foundational technologies that support the digital world to this day. Stacy Horn’s creation of Echo that curated a digital space for community engagement in discussion boards on topics that mattered, then encouraging face-to-face meetups. The essence of Echo continues today, where it was the earliest of online communities that paved the way users communicate in.

There was one story that I felt deviated from the purpose of the book. When chapter six entitled “The Mammoth Cave” came on through audio,for a split second, it sounded like I was listening to another book. The story of Patricia Crowther and her husband Will Crowther was more focused on their contributions to the cave mapping system, their marriage, and the outcomes of their divorce. As fascinating as the world of cave exploring is, I began to question the relevance of this story to the thesis of the book. This chapter is more of a stand-alone story rather than Patricia being a pivotal contributor to “ the women that made the internet” based on what information Evans provided. I made note to research more thoroughly on these two figures in order to understand more of their work as I felt this chapter should have been omitted.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book. The ambitious women who wanted to break out from the traditional roles by applying themselves to this new way of thinking, where they were both learning and problem solving as they worked on the projects. The women who “gave language to the box”, who wanted to “enrich human life and cared about the user”, making life easier as well as fundamental. This book covers a lot from the different generations, yet I believe it only scratches the surface. I would have loved it if Evans included women from other ethnicities and countries that played important roles in their respective location and time in history.

Benji also called for readers to share other people or stories that can be supporting material for Broad Band.With that in mind,and further enabling my curiosity, I found other women that contributed to the development of the internet in their careers.

• Ida Holz: An Uruguayan computer scientist, professor, and engineer known as “The Mother of the Internet” in Latin America during the early 1990s. Similar to other stories, technology was not Ida’s first venture. She lived in Mexico with her husband and she worked at Mexico’s National Statistics Institute, her role in economic and social planning. She and her husband moved back to Uruguay after exile and she was among the first women to study computer science at Uruguay’s University of the Republic during the 1970’s. Consequently, Ida became the director of the Central Information Service of the University of the Republic (SECIU). During the First Interamerican Networking Workshop in Rio de Janeiro, representatives from the U.S. and Europe proposed to install global networks in their authorities in Latin America. However, Ida bravely stood up and spoke against this notion, stating that Latin America can build and control their networks on their own region. Under her leadership, the SECIU had established the first internet node in Uruguay in 1994.

• Susan Estrada: In 1988, Susan founded the California Education and Research Federation Network (CERFnet), one of the first Internet Service Providers (IPS) in the United States. Susan’s vision was to create a network that moved from solely academic and governmental tools and more towards commercialization effectively. Other more notable internet achievements included the development of the first dial-up IP, 24/7 network monitoring, and co-founder of the Commercial Internet Exchange (CIX).

• Jean Armour Polly: An American librarian from upstate New York who worked at the Liverpool Public Library, and Polly was one of the first to offer computer access to the public in 1981. Jean then expanded this vision by connecting her computer lab to a nascent network, which created motion to theJean was a co-founder for PUBLIB, an electronic discussion list that served for administration of internet use in the public libraries.

• The Women of Hidden Figures - Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson: The three were African American mathematicians and astrophysicists that played a vital role in NASA’s first flight into space and the space program. Writer Margot Lee Shetterly introduced them to a larger audience through their book “Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race”, which later was loosely portrayed via film Hidden Figures in the year of 2016. Even though they are often grouped together, I was able to find books that allow each of them to shine on their own. Katherine recounts her life in her books “My Remarkable Journey: A Memoir” and “Reaching for the Moon: The Autobiography of NASA Mathematician Katherine Johnson”. More of Dorothy’s life can be read in the book “Dorothy Vaughan: NASA’s Leading Human Computer”. Mary became NASA’s first African American female aerospace engineer, and the book “Mary Jackson: A Complete Biography” add more details of her early life.All in all, these three inspirational women defied the gender and racial barriers through their passion for science and engineering.

During my research, I stumbled upon a website, https://nowebwithoutwomen.com/, where it shares short summaries of different women and their relevance to the internet via subcategories. This website serves as a great ending bookmark for those, like myself, to continue to explore more contributors to the internet that Evans did not mention.