Alice Burks (née Rowe, August 20, 1920 – November 21, 2017) was an American author of children's books and books about the history of electronic computers.

Early life and education

Burks was born Alice Rowe in

East Cleveland, Ohio East Cleveland is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States, and is the first suburb encountered when travelling east from Cleveland. The population was 13,792 at the 2020 census. East Cleveland is bounded by the city of Cleveland to its nor ...

, in 1920. She began her undergraduate degree at Oberlin College on a competitive mathematics scholarship and transferred to the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

where she completed her B.A. in mathematics in 1944. During this period, she was employed as a

human computer The term "computer", in use from the early 17th century (the first known written reference dates from 1613), meant "one who computes": a person performing mathematical calculations, before electronic computers became commercially available. Ala ...

at the

Moore School of Electrical Engineering The Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania came into existence as a result of an endowment from Alfred Fitler Moore on June 4, 1923. It was granted to Penn's School of Electrical Engineering, located in the Towne ...

Career

Burks retired from full-time employment after marrying Moore School lecturer Dr.

Arthur Burks Arthur Walter Burks (October 13, 1915 – May 14, 2008) was an American mathematician who worked in the 1940s as a senior engineer on the project that contributed to the design of the ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer. ...

, a mathematician who served as one of the principal engineers in the construction of the

ENIAC ENIAC (; Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer, completed in 1945. There were other computers that had these features, but the ENIAC had all of them in one pac ...

, the world's first general-purpose electronic digital computer, built at the Moore School between 1943 and 1946. Unlike some of the Moore School women computers, she never worked directly with the ENIAC. At the conclusion of Arthur's work with the Moore School and at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...

in 1946, Burks moved with her husband to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he joined the faculty of the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

and helped to found the computer science department. She returned to school, earning an M.S. in

educational psychology Educational psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of human learning. The study of learning processes, from both cognitive and behavioral perspectives, allows researchers to understand individual differences in ...

in 1957 from Michigan. Starting in the 1970s following the decision of '' Honeywell v. Sperry Rand'', the federal court case that invalidated the ENIAC patent, she and husband Arthur championed the work of

John Vincent Atanasoff John Vincent Atanasoff, , (October 4, 1903 – June 15, 1995) was an American physicist and inventor from mixed Bulgarian-Irish origin, best known for being credited with inventing the first electronic digital computer. Atanasoff invented the ...

, the

Iowa State College Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the n ...

physics professor whom the court had ruled invented the first electronic digital computer (a machine that came to be called the Atanasoff–Berry Computer) and from whom the subject matter of the ENIAC was ruled to be derived. In articles and two books, the first co-authored with Arthur, Mrs. Burks sought to bolster the judge's decision and highlight testimony and evidence from the case. This pitted the Burkses in a deeply acrimonious controversy against exponents of ENIAC inventors

John Mauchly John William Mauchly (August 30, 1907 – January 8, 1980) was an American physicist who, along with J. Presper Eckert, designed ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, as well as EDVAC, BINAC and UNIVAC I, the first ...

and

J. Presper Eckert John Adam Presper Eckert Jr. (April 9, 1919 – June 3, 1995) was an American electrical engineer and computer pioneer. With John Mauchly, he designed the first general-purpose electronic digital computer (ENIAC), presented the first course in c ...

. Burks later lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she was assisting her husband

with writing his memoirs and preparing his papers for university donation. Arthur died on May 14, 2008. Burks died in November 2017 at the age of 97.Alice Burks Obituary
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Bibliography

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Children's books

References

External links

Oral history interview with Alice R. Burks and Arthur W. Burks

Charles Babbage Institute The IT History Society (ITHS) is an organization that supports the history and scholarship of information technology by encouraging, fostering, and facilitating archival and historical research. Formerly known as the Charles Babbage Foundation, ...

, University of Minnesota.
International Biographical Dictionary of Computer Pioneers
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Burks, Alice 1920 births 2017 deaths American children's writers Human computers Oberlin College alumni University of Michigan School of Education alumni Writers from Ann Arbor, Michigan