I'm glad Barbara raised the issue of misattribution. It's something I was mulling over yesterday afternoon while this e-mail thread was percolating. Like Paul, I was reminded of the Atanasoff debate.

I'm curious, though, and I'm sure many on the list have given this thought, why the impulse within the media and the general public to seek out specific "founders" or "firsts" with regard to technology, and if the answers are muddled or messy or not inclined to point ot a single finger, why is there a willingness to embrace shoddy claims just for the sake of having a representative "creator" figure? It seems as though some fields and industries are particularly prone to this, and I wonder if computing is one of these?

In this case their are obvious publicity and pecuniary benefits to being accorded the honor in the mind of the public as the "creator" of e-mail. (And residual benefits to those associated with individuals identified as key founders of technology. I'm sure Newark and Rutgers would not mind having Ayyadurai labeled the originator of such a ubiquitous technology by the public.) I guess what I don't understand is why the public seems so prefer the story of a single genius inventor, with a technology emerging fully formed, over the incremental evolution resulting from the input of several persons and groups (as is the case with the true development of electronic mail).

Is it our impulse as humans to prefer a story? Our preference for simplicity over complexity? A desire to have particular humans rather than social process refine technology? I really don't understand the motivation to rally around a single claimant with a strained claim over a multifaceted history of a technology's formulation when it seems clear the latter is true.

When you consider the fascinating Al Gore incident, when it became a staple of late night comedy, talk radio, and general zeitgeist, the joke was political or personality driven: the hubris or absurdity of a politician having created the internet. The dissonance in the popular imagination was with the idea of Gore as creator, not that something as large as "the internet" could have a single creator.

Am I alone in my puzzlement?

--Andrew

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Andrew Meade McGee
Corcoran Department of History
University of Virginia
PO Box 400180 - Nau Hall
Charlottesville, VA 22904

On Thu, Sep 4, 2014 at 9:20 AM, Ceruzzi, Paul <CeruzziP@si.edu> wrote:

I am showing my age, but I've lived through a few of these--too many. Some of you may remember the Atanasoff-ENIAC controversy, which overflowed into a fuss over the labels in the Smithsonian's "Information Age" exhibit. And the books written by Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley, Alice and Arthur Burks, et al. I can supply unpleasant details, but perhaps best off-list. When I mentioned this to Mel Kranzberg, he said, "Hey, people are still fighting over whether Newton or Leibniz invented the calculus!"

Paul E. Ceruzzi, Chairman
Division of Space History, MRC 311
National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution
PO Box 37012
Washington, DC 20013-7012
202-633-2414
http://airandspace.si.edu/staff/paul-ceruzzi

-----Original Message-----
From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Russell
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2014 6:54 PM
To: Coopersmith, Jonathan
Cc: sigcis
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Why is HuffPost publishing another "invention of email" series?

Hi folks -

To be clear, I agree with Jonathan (and others) who pointed out Gore's important role in networking history. I think we can also blame Gore a little bit for using a clumsy turn of phrase in his CNN interview, which gave an opportunity to his political opponents who wanted to portray Gore as a liar.

I found one article that Jonathan mentioned - "But Al Gore Did Help" - at http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2000-10-26/news/0010250556_1_patron-new-technologies-internet. In it, Jonathan gave us a clear, fair, high-level summary: "Gore's early initiatives helped shape the Internet into a more open and universal system with more access to federal and university databases than it would have otherwise."

In addition to Jonathan's piece, anyone teaching about this topic should know about Seth Finkelstein's page of articles and resources: http://www.sethf.com/gore/

The point I was trying to make in my earlier note is that this "invention of email" controversy (if we can call it that) resembles the Gore/invention "controversy" in that the consensus opinion of subject experts is dismissed, or deemed part of a conspiracy! The facts and evidence are well-known; yet journalists and others with opaque or questionable motives ignore them, or twist them.

I'm reminded of the way that climate skeptics and creationists "teach the controversy," which is a strategy to destabilize the overwhelming consensus of specialists and experts. That topic gives me the same irritated sensation I felt when I read the new HuffPost/email series, which is the same type of irritation I feel when I tell people that I write about Internet history and they say "you mean how Al Gore invented it? heh heh."

I hope somebody writes a biography of poor Al Gore that explains how Gore did such earnest and productive work with his advocacy of networking and climate change research, but found himself at the butt of jokes and public ridicule.

Cheers,

Andy

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