History
"Famous Technical Writer": An Oxymoron?
by Ed Malone
In the early 1960s, technical writers and editors seem to have been very concerned about fame: they returned to the theme time and time again in their publications. Seeing other writers achieve fame as novelists, playwrights, and journalists, they wondered whether it was possible for them to become famous for the type of work they did. Lacking contemporary models, they looked to history for examples. In a 1960 article, for instance, the manager of publications at Pall Corporation in Glen Grove, New York, identified several technical writers who had become famous as scientists. His examples included Euclid, Linnaeus, and Agricola, all of whom had acquired their fame as synthesizers, collectors, and transmitters of technical and scientific information rather than originators of it.[1]
The early technical communication journals such as the STWP Review and the IRE Transactions on Engineering Writing and Speech published articles about famous men, such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Cotton Mather, and Benjamin Franklin who wrote technical documents [2]-[4]. These articles were attempts to legitimize and elevate the profession by showing that it had a long, honorable past, but they were also expressions of some practitioners' desire for fame. As a technical writer for Chrysler wrote in 1962, "Every technical writer today could hope for such praise as that given to Franklin ...."[5]
The Agony and Ecstasy
In a 1961 article titled "Anyone for Fame?", a publications manager who had been assigned by his company to write a technical article for an engineering magazine mocked his own desire for fame after his "mutilated draft [had] limped back" with "red-penciled gashes ... where the cruel knives of Sales criticism had opened gaping wounds." Although he swore he would never write another article for publication, he knew that seeing his name in print and his photo next to his biography would inevitably persuade him to "labor unceasingly henceforth for these insensate monsters, producing beautiful sentences for them to beat and tear with their red and blue pencils."[6]
There were those who doubted whether modern technical writers could ever achieve lasting fame in a profession where anonymity was prized. One practitioner observed that, "The trend of 5000 years seems to point to greater and greater anonymity among technical writers, regardless of their particular functions, unless a drastic change will somehow permit the names of writers to appear on documents or productions which are their products. Efforts in this direction, however, would seem doomed to failure; [technical] writers seem content to remain in the background while others claim the limelight."[7]
Notoriety vs. Fame
There were others who believed that the only fame possible for technical writers was notoriety. In his "News and Views" column for the STWP Review (a predecessor of STC’s Technical Communication), Joseph Galasso identifed two "famous" technical writers: Robert Hancock and Carl Oglesby.[8]
In 1965, Hancock was sentenced to five years in prison for allegedly stealing computer programs from his employer, Texas Instruments, and trying to sell them to Texaco.[9]-[11]
Oglesby, a technical writer with Bendix and part-time student at the University of Michigan, joined the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and later became the organization's president, a national spokesman for the New Left. "A few more like these two," Galasso wrote, "and we won't have to respond with a 15-minute explanation when someone says, 'You're a what?'"[8]
In another news tidbit, titled "Blessed Are the Anonymous," Galasso mentions the 1966 Playboy satire, "The Technical Editor Moves Up," in which a recently promoted editor gives a jargon-ridden briefing to his wife about his plan to replace the family VW with "a Caddie with a phone."[12],[13] The piece was a bad parody of bad technical prose, but Galasso raised the question whether publicity for the profession could ever be bad: "It was a satire, to be sure, and poor, but it is exposure."[12]
That Notorious Book
One could write a book about notorious technical writers of the early professional era; and, in fact, that is what Malden Grange Bishop did. His book, Billions for Confusion: The Technical Writing Industry (1963), brought corruption in the technical writing industry to the public's attention. Although he does not identify most of the culprits in his book, Bishop does tell the story of Tom Summers, an administrative assistant, and Herb Barr, an engineer, who approached Bishop, a publications manager, about a scheme to inflate bids for technical manuals under government contracts. Bishop notified the FBI and participated in a sting operation. As one might expect, and some may even remember, this book caused quite a stir in the media and prompted calls for government investigations of the industry.[14]
TECHWR-L Discussion
The topic of fame resurfaced in the 1990s when a technical writer at Cha Systems in Dallas, Texas, initiated a discussion on TECHWR-L: "Are there any famous technical writers? Has anyone ever become famous by being a technical writer?" His posting received more than 25 responses, ranging from there are many famous technical writers to there are none because anonymity goes hand in hand with technical writing.[15]
Some of the respondents mentioned textbook writers such as Joann Hackos, William Horton, and Edward Tufte. Others mentioned the authors of popular tutorials and self-help books: Eric Ray, Laura Lemay, and Mrs. Beeton. In response to these suggestions, one contributor noted that, "As the author or coauthor of 33 published books on software (most of them done during the 80's), I can tell you that 'fame' in technical writing is fleeting."
Still others who participated in the TECHWR-L discussion mentioned famous authors who were former technical writers, such as Thomas Pynchon, Amy Tan, Kurt Vonnegut, and Robert Pirsig, none of whom became famous as technical writers.[16] They could have mentioned many others, such as children's authors Piers Anthony, Paul Zindel, Jean Auel, and Gloria Miklowitz. The latter wrote scripts for technical films at the Naval Ordnance Test Station in Pasadena in the early 1950s.[17]-[19]
A few participants suggested fictional technical communicators, such as Tina the Technical Writer. Their best examples, though, were not technical writers, per se, but technical communicators on television: Delia Smith, Bob Villa, and Martha Stewart. While Hackos, Horton, and Tufte are well known in the profession and have been for quite some time, Villa and Stewart are household names in the United States.
"Most Beautiful Engineer"
My interest in this topic stems from my research into the career of Lucille J. Pieti, a Chrysler engineer who, from January 1953 to March 1954, toured the country in a traveling technology show, giving lectures on automotive technologies and interacting with spectators. In July 1953, Cars magazine published her picture on its cover, dubbing her Chrysler's "Most Beautiful Engineer." Although she had a degree in mechanical engineering, her official job title was "Technical Writer." She later did Plymouth commercials (technical in nature) during episodes of the 1954 TV series That's My Boy. Pieti achieved a level of fame (however brief) comparable to that of actors, politicians, and sports figures.[20]
References
[1] Joel J. Shulman, "Technical Writers Who Became Famous as Scientists," STWP Review, 7.3, 1960, pp. 17-21.
[2] William A. Freedman, "Geoffrey Chaucer, Technical Writer," STWP Review, 8.4, 1961, pp. 14-15.
[3] Joel J. Shulman, "Cotton Mather, America's First Great Technical Writer," STWP Review, 10.2, 1963, pp. 20-22.
[4] John A. Brogan, "Lessons from Benjamin Franklin, America's First Great Technical Writer," IEEE Transactions on Engineering Writing and Speech, 8, 1965, pp. 3-7.
[5] Charles C. Hargis, Jr., "America's First Great Technical Writer," STWP Review, 9.1, 1962, pp. 12-13.
[6] L. S. Eggleton, "Anyone for Fame?" STWP Review, 8.1, 1961, pp. 10-11.
[7] Joel J. Shulman, "The Anonymous Technical Writer in History," STWE Review, 7.1, 1960, pp. 22-26.
[8] Joseph A. Galasso, "News and Views: Fame, a Near Fortune, and Notoriety," STWP Review, 13.1, 1966, p. 22.
[9] "Two Jailed in Computer Chart Thefts," Abilene Reporter-News, Nov. 20 , 1964, p. 17A.
[10] "Business and Finance," Los Angeles Times, Sep. 7, 1965, part 3, p. B11.
[11] "Texan Loses Appeal to U.S. Court," Corpus Christi Times, June 21, 1967, p. B5.
[12] Joseph A. Galasso, "News and Views: Blessed Are the Anonymous ...They Shall Make Playboy," STWP Review, 14.1, 1967, p. 29.
[13] Jacob Hay, "The Technical Editor Moves Up," Playboy, Nov. 1966, pp. 141, 218.
[14] Malden Grange Bishop. Billions for Confusion: The Technical Writing Industry, Menlo Park: McNally and Loftin, 1963. Thanks to Donald H. Cunningham for introducing me to this book a few years ago.
[15] Bill Hartzer, "Famous technical writers?" Message posted to Techwr-l onNov. 15, 1999. http://www.techwr-l.com/archives/9911/techwhirl-9911-00554.html (I have cited the first posting in the thread. For the entire thread, see http://www.techwrl.com/archives/9911/index.html#00554.)
[16] In addition to the TECHWR-L discussion, see Charles E. Beck, "The Most Famous Yet Unusual Technical Writer," Technical Communication, 41.2, 1994, 354-357.
[17] Bernard Alger Drew, The 100 Most Popular Young Adult Authors, 2nd ed., New York: Libraries Unlimited, 1997, p. 22.
[18] M. Jerry Weiss and Helen S. Weissby, ed., Lost and Found, Macmillan, 2001, p. 208.
[19] "Gloria D. Miklowitz Papers," USM de Grummond Collection, McCain Library and Archives, University of Southern Mississippi,
http://www.lib.usm.edu/~degrum/html/research/findaids/miklowitz.htm
[20] I have written a lengthy article about Pieti; it is currently under review at a journal.
***************
is Director of Technical Communication Programs in the Department of English and Technical Communication (http://english.mst.edu/department/techcom.html) at the Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, Missouri. He is researching the technical writing profession in the 1950s.
