Early interactions between the life insurance and computer industries: The prudential's Edmund C. Berkeley

IEEE Annals of the History of Computing

Volumn 19, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 60-73

  Yates, Joanne ^a  

^a MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

COMPUTER APPLICATIONS; INDUSTRY; INPUT OUTPUT PROGRAMS; TECHNOLOGY; INDUSTRIAL INSURANCE; INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY;

COMPUTER INDUSTRY; COMPUTER VENDORS; LIFE INSURANCE; VERIFICATION;

COMPUTERS; COMPUTER APPLICATIONS;

EID: 0031173080     PISSN: 10586180     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1109/85.601736     Document Type: Article

References (83)

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16. E.C. Berkeley, Giant Brains, or Machines That Think. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1949.
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18. E.C. Berkeley and E.E. Chalmers to H.J. Volk, E.F. Cooley, and L.I. Ferguson, 30 Nov. 1942, Berkeley Collection, Box 3, Folder 32, Charles Babbage Institute, Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, [hereafter Berkeley Coll. 3: 32, CBI].
19. W.V. Cassara, "Survey of Premium Billing and Accounting," Proc. Insurance Accounting and Statistical Assoc., 1952, pp. 66-76.
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23. B.E. Olmstead, "Prudential's Early Experience With Computers," Prudential internal typescript, 1 Feb. 1978, p. 3.
24. P. Hennessy, "Edmund C. Berkeley Papers," archival finding aid, Charles Babbage Inst., Minneapolis, Minn., 1990.
25. E.C. Berkeley to H.J. Volk, 26 May 1941, Berkeley Coll. 3: 34, CBI.
26. E.C. Berkeley to H.J. Volk, 30 Apr. 1942, Berkeley Coll. 3: 34, CBI.
27. E.C. Berkeley, "Application of Symbolic Logic to Punch Card Tabulation in Insurance Company Problems," Paper submitted to the Record of the Amer. Inst. Actuaries, May 1942, Berkeley Coll. 3: 33, CBI.
28. E.G. Berkeley, "Application of Symbolic Logic," Report no. 8, 5 Dec. 1941, Berkeley Coll. 3: 33, CBI.
29. B.C. Berkeley to H.J. Volk, 28 Dec. 1941, "Application of Modern Mathematics to Insurance Company Problems," Symp. Numerical Computational Devices, 28 Dec. 1941, Report no. 2, 26 Jan. 1942, Berkeley Coll. 3: 35, CBI.
30. E.G. Berkeley to H.J. Volk, 4 Feb. 1942, Berkeley Coll. 3: 32, CBI.
31. E.C. Berkeley to H.J. Volk, 9 Feb. 1942, Berkeley Coll. 3: 35, CBI.
32. A.G. Bromley, "Analog Computing Devices," W. Aspray, ed., Computing Before Computers. Ames: Iowa State Univ. Press, 1990, pp. 156-185, especially p. 178.
33. E.C. Berkeley to H.J. Volk, 10 Nov. 1941, Berkeley Coll. 3: 34, CBI.
34. E.C. Berkeley to H.J. Volk, E.F. Cooley, and L.I. Ferguson, 30 Nov. 1942, Berkeley Coll. 3: 32, CBI.
35. E.G. Berkeley to H.J. Volk, C.B. Laing, and E.F. Cooley, 13 Jan. 1947, Berkeley Coll. 8: 52, CBI.
36. E.C. Berkeley to H.J. Volk, C.B. Laing, and E.F. Cooley, 17 Sept. 1946, Berkeley Coll. 8: 52, CBI.
37. E.C. Berkeley to H.J. Volk, C.B. Laing, and E.F. Cooley, 30 Sept. 1946, in Accession 1825, Unisys Records, Box 83, courtesy of Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Del. [hereafter Unisys 83, Hagley].
38. E.C. Berkeley to E.F. Cooley, 6 Jan. 1947, Berkeley Coll. 3:51, CBI.
39. E.C. Berkeley to H.J. Volk, C.B. Laing, E.F. Cooley, 28 Jan. 1947, Berkeley Coll. 8:53, CBI.
40. E.C. Berkeley to H.J. Volk, 5 Nov. 1946, Unisys 78, Hagley.
41. As this and other Berkeley documents in the CBI's Berkeley Collection show, he was thinking in terms of a general-purpose, relatively high-speed central processor, not as Stern [1] has argued, only of high-speed input and output equipment.
42. E.C. Berkeley to H.J. Volk, C.B. Laing, E.F. Cooley, "New Machinery to Handle Information - Path of Development. Report no. 2: Finding and Studying Applications," 17 Feb. 1947, Berkeley Coll. 8:53, CBI.
43. Berkeley's reports from this period did not even mention the recomputation of life experience tables due to changes in the Guertin Law, the application that, according to Stern [1], drove Prudential's investigation into computers.
44. H.T. Engstrom to Prudential Insurance Company of American (attn. Berkeley), 21 Jan. 1947, Berkeley Coll. 8:53, CBI.
45. E.C. Berkeley to H.J. Volk, C.B. Laing, and E.F. Cooley, 7 Feb. 1947, Berkeley Coll. 8:53, CBI.
46. E.C. Berkeley to H.J. Volk, C.B. Laing, and E.F. Cooley, 18 Feb. 1947, "New Machinery to Handle Information - Path of Development, Report no. 3: Paying the Cost of Development," Berkeley Coll. 8:53, CBI.
47. Raytheon Manufacturing Company, "Proposal for an Automatic Digital Calculator for the Prudential Insurance Company," 31 Mar. 1947, Berkeley Coll. 8:54, CBI.
48. Berkeley to H.J. Volk, C.B. Laing, and E.F. Cooley, Symp. Large Scale Digital Calculating Machinery, 13 Jan. 1947, Harvard Computation Laboratory, Cambridge, Mass., 7-10 Jan. 1947, Berkeley Coll. 8:52, CBI.
49. In a 13 Mar. 1947 letter, J.W. Mauchly to E.C. Berkeley [in Unisys 48, Hagley], Mauchly refers to Berkeley's "three memoranda" dated 13 Jan., 28 Jan., and 27 Feb. The two men may have met even before this point, but the correspondence makes clear that they certainly interacted at this symposium.
50. Electronic Control Company, "Proposal for the Construction of a Group of Electronic Sequence Controlled Calculators," 18 Feb. 1947, Berkeley Coll. 8:53, CBI.
51. A.L. Norberg, "New Engineering Companies and the Evolution of the United States Computer Industry," Business and Economic History, vol. 22, no. 1, p. 186, Fall 1993.
52. E.g., J.W. Mauchly to E.C. Berkeley, 26 Feb. 1947, Berkeley Coll 8:53, CBI.
53. Berkeley to F.B. Gerhard, C.B. Laing, R.W. Cobb, and E.F. Cooley, 24 May 1947, Berkeley Coll. 8:55, CBI.
54. "Application of High Speed Computing Machines to Certain Prob-lems of the Prudential Life Insurance Company," Electronic Control "Company, 16 May 1947, Unisys 48, Hagley.
55. While Prudential used a great deal of IBM punched card equipment by this time, its premium billing operation was not yet handled by such equipment [23, pp. 7-9], perhaps in part because the Gore sorters had delayed Prudential's adoption of IBM tabulating equipment.
56. Oral history interview with E. Kelley of IBM Marketing, conducted by J. Yates and B. Hancke, 6 Aug. 1993.
57. B.C. Berkeley to F.B. Gerhard, C.B. Laing, R.W. Cobb, and E.F. Cooley, 24 May 1947, Berkeley Coll. 8:55, CBI.
58. According to Olmstead's [23, p. 11] account, even when Thomas Watson, Jr., met with Prudential's top management a few years later to tell them that "IBM would be developing electronic computers," IBM "made [it] clear that, unlike Eckert-Mauchly, IBM would not be interested in Prudential's suggestions for desired characteristics of the equipment."
59. E.C. Berkeley, "List of Some Questions for Discussion at Meeting Called for May 14, 1947 ... in Mr. F.B. Gerhard's Office," 13 May 1947, Berkeley Coll. 8:55, CBI.
60. His estimates that Electronic Control Company and others would develop commercially available machines more quickly were optimistic, however. It was, in fact, at least that long before any computers were available for other than government or university use.
61. The 1956 program for the Electronics Session of the Proceedings of the Insurance Accounting and Statistical Association provides a clear picture of the 650's immediate popularity in the industry: It contains two papers on Univac applications and 17 on 650 applications.
62. T.J. Watson, Jr., and P. Petre, Father, Son and Co.: My Life at IBM and Beyond. New York: Bantam Books, 1990, p. 297.
63. E.C. Berkeley to J.W. Mauchly and J.P. Eckert, 8 July 1947, Unisys 79, Hagley.
64. M. Campbell-Kelly and W. Aspray, Computer: A History of the Information Machine. New York: Basic Books, 1996, p. 110.
65. J.W. Mauchly and J.P. Eckert, Jr., to the Prudential Insurance Company, 4 Aug. 1947, in Unisys 80, Hagley, and Berkeley Coll. 3:56, CBI.
66. "Report to Prudential Insurance Company of America on the Possibility of Constructing High-Speed Card-to-Tape Converters," 12 Mar. 1948, Unisys 81, Hagley.
67. E.C. Berkeley to F.B. Gerhard, C.B. Laing, R.W. Cobb, and E.F. Cooley, 10 July 1947, Berkeley Coll. 3:56, CBI.
68. E.C. May and W. Oursler, The Prudential; a Story of Human Security. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1950, p. 309.
69. Berkeley, "Electronic Machinery for Handling Information - Policy Discussion," 13 May 1947, Berkeley Coll. 8:55, CBI.
70. E.C. Berkeley, "Electronic Machinery for Handling Information, and Its Uses in Insurance," Actuarial Soc. Amer., 8 May 1947, Berkeley Coll. 3:53, CBI; published in Trans. Actuarial Soc. Amer., vol. 48, pp. 36-52.
71. E.C. Berkeley, "Electronic Machinery for Handling Information, and Its Uses in Insurance," Actuarial Soc. Amer., 8 May 1947, Berkeley Coll. 3:53, CBI; published in Trans. Actuarial Soc. Amer., vol. 48, pp. 36-52.
72. W.P. Barber, E.H. Wells, and E.A. Rieder, Trans. Actuarial Soc. Amer., vol. 48, pp. 278ff; manuscript form in Berkeley Coll. 3:54, CBI.
73. E.C. Berkeley, "Electronic Sequence Controlled Calculating Machinery, and Applications in Insurance," Proc. Life Office Management Assoc., 1947, pp. 116-129.
74. JWM [Mauchly] to JPE [Eckert], GMC, JRW, and ILA, 28 Apr. 1948 (Unisys 81, Hagley).
75. An undated draft of this purchase agreement may be found in Unisys 78, Hagley. Stern [1, p. 286] states that it was signed on 8 Dec. 1948, but the internal report by Olmstead [23] says Prudential's Executive Committee approved the contract on 28 Nov.
76. Berkeley had been working on a Prudential "hazards project" that identified nuclear war as one of the greatest threats to mankind. When Prudential abandoned the project and told Berkeley he could no longer work on it, even on his own time, Berkeley felt it was his moral imperative to oppose nuclear war, so he left the firm to do so. P. Hennessy, "Edmund C. Berkeley Papers," (archival finding aid), Charles Babbage Inst., Univ. Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1990.
77. "Remington Rand Forum on the Use of Electronics in the Insurance Industry," as reproduced in K.M. Hills, Insurance Data Processing. Philadelphia: Chilton Company Spectator, 1967, p. 138.
78. G. Boyd, in a session on "Remington Rand Univac," Proc. Insurance Accounting and Statistical Assoc., 1954, p. 445.
79. H.F. Mitchell, Director, Applications Research and Engineering Department, "Practical Adaptations to Insurance," Proc. First Electronics Conf. Insurance Accounting and Statistical Assoc., 20-21 Apr. 1953, p. 26.
80. T.J. Watson, Jr., and P. Petre, Father, Son and Co.:My Life at IBM and Beyond. New York: Bantam Books, 1990.
81. M.E. Davis, W.P. Barber, Jr., J.J. Finelli, and W. Klem, Report of Committee on New Recording Means and Computing Devices, Soc. Actuaries, Sept. 1952.
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83. E.W. Phillips, "Finelli and Electronic Procedures," Rev. London, 4 Mar. 1960 [quoted in [21, p. 345].