Mark Bernstein & Erin Sweeney's "The Election of 1912"
Biography of Mark Bernstein
Mark Bernstein has been writing hypertexts and developing hypertext authoring software since 1987. His impact in the development and publishing of hypertexts cannot be overstated. Bernstein has held pivotal roles as an author, editor, publisher, and theorist of hypertext. He is founder and chief scientist at Eastgate Systems, Inc. where he has been responsible for the publication and editing of many of the core and foundational works of hypertext’s early period. As a software engineer and scientist he wrote Hypergate, a hypertext authoring tool that predates Apple’s HyperCard. He has also maintained and updated Eastgate Systems, Inc.'s Storyspace authoring tool, migrating it to the Windows environment and maintaining accessibility to Apple users through the arc of OS upgrades and evolution. He developed Tinderbox, a personal assistant tool that uses hypertext principles to organize and develop thoughts and notes.
Mark Bernstein's research publications on hypertext, new media, and social media are numerous and vital. A full list of his published contributions to the hypertext field are available in his CV. In addition to writing about hypertext, Bernstein is also the author of several key works of hypertext. He wrote Hypertext Gardens, the hypertext The Election of 1912 (with Erin Sweeney, 1988, featured in this book) and Those Trojan Girls (2016, featured in Rebooting Electronic Literature Volume 3).
Bernstein is a graduate of Swarthmore College, and he holds a doctorate in Chemistry from Harvard University. He has worked as a chemical scientist, a computer scientist, a publisher, an editor, an author, an educator, and an academic.
Biography of Erin Sweeney
Erin Sweeney was born in Bucks County, PA. She graduated from Williams College in 1982 as an English and Philosophy major and was the first person in her family to go to college. She worked at Baker Library at Dartmouth College, first as a reserve circulation assistant and, then, as head of the microform department. She met her first husband, David Levine, a Ph.D. student in computer science and friend, fellow Swarthmore alum, and co-Eastgate conspirator with Mark Bernstein.
She began working with Bernstein editing reviews of technical manuscripts. At some point, he began working on HyperGate and tasked Erin with finding a presidential election that would lend itself to an interactive historical experience.
After completing work on The Election of 1912, Erin became heavily involved with horses, training, teaching, and striving for her own international aspirations in the dressage arena. She moved to the West with her horses and began training racehorses for her current husband. She and her husband now live at C Bar Ranch in New Mexico where they raise registered Angus cattle, primarily for sale as breeding stock. They are also heavily involved with reclamation and erosion control work through U.S. Fish and Wildlife and U.S. Forest Service and do a lot of revegetation with native grasses and shrubs, receiving awards for their work: the Excellence in Range Management Award from the New Mexico Section of the Society for Range Management (2013), the award for Outstanding Land Stewardship for Region III for the New Mexico Association of Conservation Districts (2015), and the same award for the entire state (2015). They have been chosen to address conservation issues at the Regenerate Conference of the Quivira Coalition in 2018, as well as local groups.
She began working with Bernstein editing reviews of technical manuscripts. At some point, he began working on HyperGate and tasked Erin with finding a presidential election that would lend itself to an interactive historical experience.
After completing work on The Election of 1912, Erin became heavily involved with horses, training, teaching, and striving for her own international aspirations in the dressage arena. She moved to the West with her horses and began training racehorses for her current husband. She and her husband now live at C Bar Ranch in New Mexico where they raise registered Angus cattle, primarily for sale as breeding stock. They are also heavily involved with reclamation and erosion control work through U.S. Fish and Wildlife and U.S. Forest Service and do a lot of revegetation with native grasses and shrubs, receiving awards for their work: the Excellence in Range Management Award from the New Mexico Section of the Society for Range Management (2013), the award for Outstanding Land Stewardship for Region III for the New Mexico Association of Conservation Districts (2015), and the same award for the entire state (2015). They have been chosen to address conservation issues at the Regenerate Conference of the Quivira Coalition in 2018, as well as local groups.