[SIGCIS-Members] Request for biographies

BURTON GRAD burtgrad at aol.com
Sun Sep 6 12:36:48 PDT 2020


Relevant to the comment about the Churchill biographies. Martin Gilbert wrote “In Search of Churchill” describing how he ended up writing the eight volumes. As the Software History SIG has done oral histories of over 100 software company pioneers, I have always considered how difficult it would be to do a full biography of the person. How much research and insight it would take to bring that person to life in a book so that those reading it would see the person as a whole. I am impressed with those of you that attempt to do this and even more impressed when you succeed. 

Burt Grad

Sent from my iPad

> On Sep 6, 2020, at 3:16 PM, Brian Berg <brianberg at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Wow, that's a wonderful addition to this discussion.  I wonder how often the same has been true for the various multi-volume biographies of people such as Winston Churchill.  Brian
> 
>> On Sun, Sep 6, 2020 at 12:09 PM James Cortada <jcortada at umn.edu> wrote:
>> I would like to pipe in also to advocate for biography.  I long ago came to the conclusion that the most difficult type  of history to do is probably biography, which is why I never attempted to do it.  So when someone writes a good biography I am in awe, especially since we need these.  Bio story: Dumas Malone the great biographer of Thomas Jefferson told me in the 1960s that it was his objective to write his multi volume bio while going through the same age as Jefferson, i.e., writing about Jefferson in his '60s when Malone was in his '60s.  Both lived into their '80s.  He did it this way, he said, so that he could relate to such issues as their stations in life, attitude toward their prior accomplishments and their responses to the aches and pains of old age.  I did not "get it" when he told this to me at my then age of 21; a half century later, I get it.  But to put a fine point on his experience, he began studying biography in his '20s.  
>> 
>>> On Sun, Sep 6, 2020 at 1:53 PM Barbara B Walker <bbwalker at unr.edu> wrote:
>>> Greetings, all,
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> It’s been wonderful to see this outpouring of excitement about biographies (and memoirs), reflecting their intrinsic fascination. Biographies are sometimes dismissed as subjective, celebratory, irrelevant to the broader structural issues of society, for example gender. But especially in an age of upward mobility through education, expertise, and innovation, good biographies are an extraordinary source of power for individual motivation and self-understanding. Sometimes they are indeed irritatingly celebratory, partly just because it is difficult for a biographer to stick to the research, if not inspired by the subject.
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> But biographies and memoirs are life-stories, and at their best uncover a multitude of difficulties and solutions to the grand Tolstoyan question, “kak zhit’,” or “how to live.” Difficulties overcome in intellectual development, love, family, institutions, financial relations – or not overcome – all are grist for readers of a biography to contemplate their own lives, and to strategize for their own success and happiness. As I have seen in reading/watching life-stories with my students, diverse and upwardly mobile as they are at my state university, life-stories are among the most profound tools for self-transformation. More publicly, it is extraordinary how Ron Chernow’s wonderful, complex biography of Alexander Hamilton, reimagined also by Miranda as a musical, has inspired a generation.
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Dare I say that if left to men as a genre of scholarship, biographies serve especially to empower men? (and, heh-heh, to preserve the patriarchy!) Women too can learn from the lives of brilliant men, and do. But women – and all in the vast range of human gender and ethnic diversity -- historically face a variety of life-experiences not necessarily experienced by men, and so their lives are a potential source for expanding our understanding of “kak zhit’,” or how to live. And what it means to be human.
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> And just to contradict myself, let me add that one of the most inspiring biographies I have read is James Hamilton’s A Life of Discovery, Michael Faraday, Giant of the Scientific Revolution. Hamilton is an art historian, so able to illuminate Faraday’s remarkable ability to visualize the forces of nature, despite a poor education and a distinct weakness in formal mathematics. Those of my students uncomfortable with math love that part!
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Hope all are having a safe, refreshing weekend, Barbara
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> From: Members <members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org> on behalf of "Ceruzzi, Paul" <CeruzziP at si.edu>
>>> Date: Saturday, September 5, 2020 at 4:58 PM
>>> To: "members at lists.sigcis.org" <members at lists.sigcis.org>
>>> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Request for biographies
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Here are some autobiographies / memoirs:
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Paul Ceruzzi
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> _________________________________
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Allen 
>>> 
>>> Paul 
>>> 
>>> Idea Man 
>>> 
>>> 2011 
>>> 
>>> Portfolio/Penguin 
>>> 
>>> Bartik 
>>> 
>>> Jean Jennings 
>>> 
>>> Pioneer Programmer: Jean Jennings Bartik and the Computer that changed the world 
>>> 
>>> 2013 
>>> 
>>> Truman State University Press 
>>> 
>>> Beranek 
>>> 
>>> Leo 
>>> 
>>> Riding the Waves: a life in sound, science, and industry 
>>> 
>>> 2008 
>>> 
>>> MIT 
>>> 
>>> Berners-Lee 
>>> 
>>> Tim 
>>> 
>>> Weaving the Web 
>>> 
>>> 1999 
>>> 
>>> Harper 
>>> 
>>> Getting 
>>> 
>>> Ivan A. 
>>> 
>>> All in a Lifetime: Science in the defense of democracy 
>>> 
>>> 1989 
>>> 
>>> New York 
>>> 
>>> Grosch 
>>> 
>>> Herbert R.J. 
>>> 
>>> Computer: Bit slices from a life 
>>> 
>>> 1991 
>>> 
>>> Novato, CA 
>>> 
>>> Hardy 
>>> 
>>> G.H. 
>>> 
>>> A Mathematician's Apology 
>>> 
>>> 1976 
>>> 
>>> London 
>>> 
>>> House 
>>> 
>>> Charles H. 
>>> 
>>> Permission Denied: Odyssey of an Intrapreneur  
>>> 
>>> 2012 
>>> 
>>> Menlo Park, CA 
>>> 
>>> Lukoff 
>>> 
>>> Herman 
>>> 
>>> From Dits to Bits…: A personal history of the electronic computer 
>>> 
>>> 1979 
>>> 
>>> Portland, OR 
>>> 
>>> Mims 
>>> 
>>> Forrest M. 
>>> 
>>> Siliconnections: Coming of Age in the Electronic Era 
>>> 
>>> 1986 
>>> 
>>> New York 
>>> 
>>> Morse 
>>> 
>>> Philip M. 
>>> 
>>> In at the Beginnings: A Physicist's Life 
>>> 
>>> 1977 
>>> 
>>> Cambridge 
>>> 
>>> Ornstein 
>>> 
>>> Severo M. 
>>> 
>>> Computing in the Middle Ages: A View From the Trenches 1955-1983 
>>> 
>>> 2002 
>>> 
>>> Osborne 
>>> 
>>> Adam 
>>> 
>>> Hypergrowth: The Rise and Fall of Osborne Computer Corporation 
>>> 
>>> 1984 
>>> 
>>> Berkeley, CA 
>>> 
>>> Torvalds 
>>> 
>>> Linus 
>>> 
>>> Just For Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary 
>>> 
>>> 2001 
>>> 
>>> New York 
>>> 
>>> Ulam 
>>> 
>>> S.M. 
>>> 
>>> Adventures of a Mathematician 
>>> 
>>> 1976 
>>> 
>>> New York 
>>> 
>>> Watson 
>>> 
>>> Thomas J. Jr. 
>>> 
>>> Father, Son & Co.: My Life at IBM and Beyond 
>>> 
>>> 1991 
>>> 
>>> New York 
>>> 
>>> Wiener 
>>> 
>>> Norbert 
>>> 
>>> Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth 
>>> 
>>> 1966 
>>> 
>>> Cambridge 
>>> 
>>> Wiener 
>>> 
>>> Norbert 
>>> 
>>> I Am a Mathematician: The Later Life of a Prodigy 
>>> 
>>> 1973 
>>> 
>>> Cambridge 
>>> 
>>> Wilkes 
>>> 
>>> Maurice 
>>> 
>>> Memoirs of a Computer Pioneer 
>>> 
>>> 1985 
>>> 
>>> Cambridge 
>>> 
>>> Zuse 
>>> 
>>> Konrad 
>>> 
>>> Computer - My Life, the 
>>> 
>>> 1993 
>>> 
>>> Berlin 
>>> 
>>> [And two anthologies] 
>>> 
>>> Lee 
>>> 
>>> J.A.N. 
>>> 
>>> Computer Pioneers 
>>> 
>>> 1995 
>>> 
>>> Los Alamitos, CA 
>>> 
>>> Northrup 
>>> 
>>> Mary 
>>> 
>>> Collective Biographies: American Computer Pioneers 
>>> 
>>> 1998 
>>> 
>>> Springfield, NJ 
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> From: Members <members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org> on behalf of Marc Weber <marc at webhistory.org>
>>> Sent: Saturday, September 5, 2020 7:07 PM
>>> To: Brian Berg <brianberg at gmail.com>
>>> Cc: members at sigcis org <members at sigcis.org>
>>> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Request for biographies
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> External Email - Exercise Caution
>>> 
>>> It’s a wonderful book, and thank you to Severo for making it publicly accessible!
>>> 
>>> Severo also did an oral history with us, as did Dave Walden and several of the other folks being mentioned in this thread. 
>>> 
>>> Best, Marc
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Marc Weber  |   marc at webhistory.org  |   +1 415 282 6868 | Zoom 901 292 1071
>>> 
>>> Curatorial Director, Internet History Program
>>> 
>>> Computer History Museum, 1401 N Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View CA 94043
>>> 
>>> computerhistory.org/nethistory  |  Co-founder, Web History Center and Project
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> On Sep 5, 2020, at 07:44, Brian Berg <brianberg at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Thanks - this is some wonderful reading.  For example, the Bob Taylor portion and the birth of the ARPANET and the ALTO computer nicely complements other books such as Leslie Berlin's Troublemakers.
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Thanks, Brian Berg
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> On Sat, Sep 5, 2020 at 3:28 AM David Walden <dave.walden.family at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Severo Ornstein's memoir "Computing in the Middle Ages -- A view from the trenches, 1955-1983".
>>> 
>>> Available publicly at the Computer History Museum.
>>> https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102785079
>>> 
>>> His journey goes from Whirlwind to TX-2 to LINC to ARPANET to Durado to Mockingbird.  At least look at the annotated Table of Contents and read the Preface to see what you'd be missing to not read his well written story.
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Marc Weber  |   marc at webhistory.org  |   +1 415 282 6868 
>>> 
>>> Internet History Program Curatorial Director, Computer History Museum            
>>> 
>>> 1401 N Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View CA 94043 computerhistory.org/nethistory
>>> 
>>> Co-founder, Web History Center and Project, webhistory.org 
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> James W. Cortada
>> Senior Research Fellow
>> Charles Babbage Institute
>> University of Minnesota
>> jcortada at umn.edu
>> 608-274-6382
>> _______________________________________________
>> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org
> _______________________________________________
> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org
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