Grace Hopper Legacy Society

Admiral

Admiral is the highest rank in the US Navy. Hopper attained the rank of Commodore (later renamed Admiral) in a ceremony presided over by President Ronald Reagan in December 1983. Two years later, the rank of Commodore was renamed Rear Admiral. After a 42-year career, she retired in 1986 and received the Distinguished Service Medal, the highest noncombat decoration awarded by the Department of Defense.

Benefits

Recognition on Grace Hopper Legacy Society donor wall
Eligible for Lifetime Giving Society

Requirements

Letter of Intent documenting current market value.

Captain

Hopper retired at 60 with the rank of Commander in 1966 but was recalled in 1972 to active duty and promoted to Captain in 1973 by Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, a Navy legend whom President Bill Clinton called “the conscience of the US Navy.” As befitting her flag rank, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer was named USS Hopper (DDG-70) in her honor.

Benefits

Recognition on Grace Hopper Legacy Society donor wall

Requirements

Undocumented commitment

Who Was Grace Hopper?

Grace Hopper Giving Lecture at The Computer Museum, 1983

Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906−January 1, 1992) was a force to be reckoned with. Renowned for her mathematical prowess, wit, and leadership, Hopper worked on the earliest computers and quickly developed advanced software programs and tools to make programming computers easier.

Image: Grace Hopper giving lecture on Howard Acker and Harvard Mark I on April, 19, 1983. Photo by Carolyn Sweeny. Collection of the Computer History Museum, 102630706.

Grace Hopper at UNIVAC I Console, 1957

In 1931 Hopper began teaching mathematics at her alma mater Vassar College, leaving in 1943 to join the US Navy Reserves. Her first assignment was with Howard Aiken of the Harvard Computation Laboratory where she programmed the Harvard Mark I, a general-purpose electromechanical computer used during the later years of World War II.

Image: From left to right, Donald Cropper, K. C. Krishnan, Grace Hopper, and Norman Rothberg. Collection of the Computer History Museum, 102741216.

Grace Hopper in front of UNIVAC, 1961

After the war, Hopper joined the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation and developed A-0—often considered the first compiler—a software tool used to help write other programs. She was also involved in the development of the COBOL programming language, of which there are still millions of lines of running code. Throughout her life, Hopper was a popular educator and speaker on the coming computer revolution to generations of people, from undergraduates to Navy Admirals.

Image: Grace Hopper examining in front of UNIVAC magnetic tape drives. Collection of the Computer History Museum, 102635875.

Grace Hopper and Gwen Bell, ca. 1983

For her extraordinary contributions, The Computer Museum (TCM) in Boston named Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper as its inaugural Fellow in 1987. On November 22, 2016, she was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

Image: Grace Hopper and Gwen Bell standing in an exhibit at The Computer Museum. Gwen is carrying Grace’s carry-on bag. Collection of the Computer History Museum, 102711924.