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Title: Adele Goldberg papers
Identifier/Call Number: X5774.2010
Contributing Institution:
Computer History Museum
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
15.209 Linear feet,
12 record cartons, 1 half manuscript box
Date (bulk): Bulk, 1973-1998
Date (inclusive): 1973-2010
Abstract: The Adele Goldberg papers consist of Goldberg’s working files related to the development and licensing of Smalltalk, a programming
language she co-developed at Xerox PARC, plus periodicals, books, manuals, conference material, and reports related to object-oriented
programming and other computer science topics Goldberg was interested or involved in. The collection also contains videotapes
of some of Goldberg’s public talks. Records date from 1973 to 2010, with the bulk of material from 1973 to 1998.
Languages: The collection is primarily in English, with a small amount of material in Japanese and French.
creator:
Goldberg, Adele, 1945-
Collection processed by Bo Doub and Kim Hayden, 2015.
The collection is open for research.
The Computer History Museum (CHM) can only claim physical ownership of the collection. Users are responsible for satisfying
any claims of the copyright holder. Requests for copying and permission to publish, quote, or reproduce any portion of the
Computer History Museum’s collection must be obtained jointly from both the copyright holder (if applicable) and the Computer
History Museum.
[Identification of Item], [Date], Adele Goldberg papers, Lot X5774.2010, Box [#], Folder [#], Catalog [#], Computer History
Museum.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Adele Goldberg, 2009.
Adele Goldberg was born July 7, 1945, in Cleveland, Ohio. She received a BA in mathematics from the University of Michigan
in Ann Arbor and a master’s in information science from the University of Chicago. In 1969, Goldberg began studying for her
PhD in information science at Stanford University as a visiting University of Chicago student; she then became a research
associate at Stanford while working on her dissertation. She earned her PhD from the University of Chicago in 1973.
After receiving her PhD, Goldberg went to work at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC) as a laboratory and research
associate, and in 1979 she became the manager of its System Concepts Laboratory. At Xerox PARC, Goldberg was a co-creator
of the highly influential programming language Smalltalk-80, along with Alan Kay, Dan Ingalls, and other designers. The first
object-oriented programming language, Smalltalk introduced many of the characteristics seen in personal computers today, including
the graphical user interface, overlapping windows, point-and-click menus, dragging and dropping, and icons. Goldberg wrote
much of the documentation for Smalltalk-80, including the books Smalltalk-80: The Language and Its Implementation (1983),
Smalltalk-80: the Interactive Programming Environment (1984), and Smalltalk-80: The Language (1989), co-written with David
Robson and considered the definitive books on the subject.
From 1984 to 1986, Goldberg was the president of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). In 1988, she co-founded a
spin-off business from Xerox called ParcPlace Systems that commercialized Smalltalk-80 and provided licensing of and support
for it. She left ParcPlace in 1995, and in 1999 she co-founded the technological consulting firm Neometron. She has also acted
as CTO for various companies, served on advisory boards, and designed online college courses in math and science.
Scope and Content of the Collection
The Adele Goldberg papers contain Goldberg’s working files relating to the programming language Smalltalk; periodicals, manuals,
and other publications she collected throughout her career; and material relating to conferences and other events she participated
in. The records span 1973 through 2010 with the bulk of the collection being from 1973 to 1998.
Goldberg’s Smalltalk files document the development, licensing, and documentation of various versions of Smalltalk – from
its beginnings at Xerox PARC to its licensing and use elsewhere. Her collection of periodicals, books, and manuals form a
comprehensive body of knowledge on object-oriented programming (OOP) and also on what Xerox PARC was researching and developing
throughout the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s.
Conferences and events relating to object-oriented programming and other facets of Goldberg’s work are also well-documented
in this collection. Aside from the textual conference proceedings and material, there are videos of Goldberg’s public talks
contained in this collection’s unprocessed audiovisual material – including keynote speeches at ACM’s 1986 SIGCHI (Special
Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction) and the 1989 SCOOP conference.
The collection is arranged into 5 series:
Series 1, Smalltalk, 1973-2010, bulk 1973-1995
Series 2, Periodicals, technical papers, and articles, 1973-1998
Series 3, Conferences, workshops, and symposia, 1974-2000
Series 4, Books and manuals, 1978-1996
Series 5, Unprocessed AV material, 1978-1997
Series 6, Unprocessed software, 1995
Ephemera were separated from the main collection, including pins, buttons, and T-shirts relating to Smalltalk or conferences
that Goldberg attended. To view catalog records for separated material search the CHM catalog at
http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/search/ .
Adele Goldberg oral history, Lot X5823.2010, catalog number 102701984 (pdf) and 102702319 (video).
Related Collections at Other Repositories
Adele Goldberg oral history for the IEEE History Center,
http://ethw.org/Oral-History:Adele_Goldberg .
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Goldberg, Adele, 1945-
Kay, Alan (Alan Curtis), 1940-
Object-oriented programming (Computer science)
Smalltalk (Computer program language)
Smalltalk-80 (Computer program language)