Clifford Berry
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Clifford Edward Berry (April 19, 1918 – October 30, 1963) helped John Vincent Atanasoff create the first digital electronic computer in 1939, the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC).
He was born in Gladbrook, Iowa on 19 April 1918 to Fred Gordon Berry and Grace Strohm. He was the oldest of four children born to the couple: Clifford, Keith, Frederick, and Barbara.
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[edit] Early years
When Clifford was a small child, his father Fred had an electrical appliance and repair store in Gladbrook, where he had several electrical projects. By far the greatest of his projects was a radio--the first radio in Gladbrook.
This prompted a stream of town visitors to get a glimpse at the machine. Fred taught his son about the construction of the radio and it was here that Clifford started tinkering with electricity and radio. When he was eleven, he built his first ham radio, under his father's supervision.
From an early age, Clifford was a precocious child. His second grade teacher and the school principal suggested to his parents that he be moved a grade ahead. Fred and Grace Berry resisted for two years, until the principal argued again that Clifford needed to be challenged. He was allowed to skip the fourth grade.
When he was 11 years old, the family moved to the small town of Marengo, Iowa, where his father had accepted a position as manager of the Marengo office for Iowa Power Company. During Clifford's sophomore year at Marengo High School, where he continued to excel academically, his father was shot and killed by an employee who had been fired.
At Fred Berry's death, Grace decided the family would remain in Marengo until Clifford was ready to attend Iowa State College. At that time, they would all move to Ames, Iowa - home of the college. From as early as his family could remember, Clifford had aspired to study electrical engineering. His father had decided that Iowa State College was the college for Clifford, since its College of Engineering had a good reputation around the nation.
[edit] College years
Berry received a B.S. in electrical engineering in 1939. Upon the recommendation of electrical engineering professor Harold Anderson, Berry began assisting Atansoff with his computer machine project in Spring 1939, beginning with the construction of a prototype, the demonstration of which to Iowa State College officials in December 1939 earned a grant of $850 from the Iowa State College Research Council for the construction of a full-scale machine capable of solving systems of equations. Work on that machine started after the Christmas holiday.
By late Spring 1940, a 35-page manuscript, Computing Machines for the Solution of Large Systems of Linear Algebraic Equations, complete with drawings of the machine, was written by Atanasoff with Berry's assistance. One copy of this manuscript was sent in late 1940 to Chicago patent lawyer Richard R. Trexler, who had been hired by Iowa State College to assist with patent filings for the invention.
Work on the computer halted with the beginning of World War II. Atanasoff left Ames, Iowa on leave from Iowa State for a defense-related position at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in Washington, D.C. At the time of Atanasoff's departure, patent proceedings had not been completed.
[edit] Graduate studies, professional life, and suicide
While Clifford was a graduate student in physics and was working as a graduate assistant on the ABC, he met Martha Jean Reed, an Iowa State graduate who was working in the physics department as secretary to John Atanasoff. The couple wed in May 30, 1942 in Ames, Iowa. They had two children, Carol and David.
Berry received his M.S. in physics in 1941. After their marriage in 1942, the couple left Iowa for a defense-related job he had been offered with Consolidated Engineering Corporation in Pasadena, California. Under a special arrangement with Iowa State, he did his research in absentia and completed the requirements for the Ph.D. (in physics) in 1948 while employed by CEC, after presenting a thesis entitled The Effects of Initial Energies on Mass Spectra. He became chief physicist at CEC in 1949 and assistant director of research in 1952. He was made director of engineering of the Analytical and Control Division in 1959 and also served as its technical director.
In early October 1963 Berry left CEC to become manager of advanced development at the Vacuum-Electronics Corporation in Plainview, New York. He died suddenly on October 30, 1963, before his family had a chance to join him in New York. His death was investigated and ruled a suicide by suffocation, a conclusion never accepted by his widow, who suspected as the cause, at various times, epileptic seizures or foul play.
[edit] Patents and publications
Dr. Berry was issued 19 patents in the area of mass spectrometry, 11 patents in various areas of vacuum and electronics and, at the time of his death, had 13 patents pending.
He had several articles printed in publications such as: Physics Review, Instruments, National Bureau of Standards, Journal of Applied Physics, and Annual Review of Nuclear Science. He contributed a chapter for the McGraw Hill's Process Instruments and Controls Handbook.
He was a member of the American Physical Society, American Vacuum Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Sigma Xi, Eta Kappa Nu, Pi Mu Epsilon, and Phi Kappa Phi.
