One of the items that I found curious is what motivated Fox to write this book and focus so much attention on Alice. I was surprised to learn that she is well-known as an obituary writer for the New York Times. In addition to a master’s degree in journalism, she also earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in linguistics from Stony Brook University. With this background, I can understand how she combined her skills and passion in multiple interests and felt compelled to write this book.
I found this article in the New York Times where she has written a modern obit of Kober. Much of it is repetitive to the book. It’s a good refresher if you have already returned the book to the library like me. However I thought the concluding paragraphs were interesting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/s...y-no-more.html
Quote:
After Dr. Kober died, on May 16, 1950, The Times published a short obituary article under the headline, “Prof. Alice Kober of Brooklyn Staff.” The article — the dutiful roster of job titles and professional memberships that typified obituaries of the period — devotes less than a sentence to her work on Linear B.
And so to redeem my profession, to correct a gaping omission in the story of one of the world’s great intellectual puzzles and to narrate a vital piece of American women’s history, I have chosen to reconstitute this singular unsung heroine at length, at last.
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