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Erwin Danziger brings UNC into the Computer Age
by Charly Mann
Much of what makes Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina such a memorable place comes from a family who emigrated to Chapel Hill in 1939 from Vienna, Austria. That family is the Danzigers. Many of us recall Papa Danziger and his Old World Restaurant & Gift Shop, and his son Ted's Rathskeller, Zoom-Zoom, Ranch House, and Villa Theo. Yet the most extraordinary Danziger, in my opinion, is Ted's younger brother Erwin.
Erwin Danziger, UNC Class of 1951 at age 22
Erwin was born in Vienna on December 9th, 1928 into a family of candy makers and merchants. His grandfather had owned coffee houses in Italy and what is now Croatia. He also had a pastry and candy shop in Vienna. Erwin's father, Edward "Papa D" Danziger owned a candy factory in Vienna as well as candy stores in Berlin, Baden, and Vienna before he came to the United States. He was also the Austrian distributor for the top three premium chocolates in the world; Lindt and Tobler (both Swiss) and Droste (Dutch).
When the Danzigers moved to Chapel Hill in May of 1939 Erwin saw his father working 18 hour days for the next four months to get his store, Danziger's Candy and Coffee Shop, ready to open on Franklin Street by September. Once the store was open his Dad cut back to working 12 hours a day. Even though Erwin was eleven in 1939 he also worked in the new Danziger's Candy Store along with his mother, Emily and brother Ted.
One of the first ads for Danziger's Candy and Coffee Shop from 1939
Erwin left Chapel Hill in 1948 to serve in the US Army and was stationed in Germany. He returned to Chapel Hill in 1950 to attend UNC, and received a BA in business administration in 1951. He then returned to Germany and worked for the Army in a civilian capacity learning skills that would today be similar to those of a systems analyst. In 1952 he came back to UNC to get an MBA which he received in 1954. The entire time Erwin lived in Chapel Hill, from junior high school until he finished graduate school, he always worked at his father's store. The family has a tradition of working hard and being smart. His brother Ted, who was Chapel Hill's greatest restaurateur, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from UNC in only 2.5 years with a degree in chemistry.
After receiving his MBA Erwin decided to break from the family tradition of owning a restaurant or being a candy maker and try something else that would give him more time to enjoy life. He had seen how hard and long his father had worked to be successful as a candy maker and merchant, and by this time his brother Ted had established the Rathskeller and the Ranch House, he saw the physical toll this was taking on him. Erwin decided he could to enjoy life more if he worked for someone else. For the next ten years, from 1955 to 1965, Erwin worked as a Programmer and Systems Analyst for a succession of the top corporations in the United States including Chrysler, Dow Chemical, General Electric, and RCA. At this time large companies were just beginning to use computers to automate some of their processes. Computers before this had been used primarily for military and scientific purposes. Programming computers was a slow and tedious task that required writing code in the binary language of "0s" and "1s" which is all computers really understand. It was not until five years later, in 1960, that the "higher level" language COBOL was introduced to make programming vastly easier for business applications.
Erwin Danziger, Director of UNC's Administrative Data Processing 1965 to 1989
After ten years in industry Danziger again returned to Chapel Hill to take on the challenge of bringing UNC into the computer age. For the next twenty-four years, from 1965 to 1989, he was the Director of Administrative Data Processing for the University of North Carolina. In addition to this, from 1965 to 1987 he taught a class in Business Systems Analysis for the department of Computer Science, as well as a computer course for UNC School of Public Health from 1975 to 1980. He was also one of three UNC representatives for TUCC, the Triangle Universities Computer Center, which was established in 1965 as a cooperative venture between Duke, NC State, and UNC-Chapel Hill to provide mainframe computing services to the three universities, the Research Triangle Institute, and other schools in the area.
Joe Ragland, TUCC Information Services manager, Erwin Danziger, TUCC Board member from UNC, Leland Williams, TUCC Director
Over Danziger's years of managing the UNC's ADP Computer Center there were several large mainframe computer systems that the University used including a UNIVAC 70/7 and a IBM 370. These were huge computers that took up several thousand feet of space and had to kept in specially designed rooms. In the beginning most of the programming and data was entered into the computer by punch cards. The ADP department eventually included around 120 programmers and systems analysts. Today almost all this work is done by personal computers that are networked to UNC's central computer.
1960s UNIVAC computer system. Today's laptop computers are many times more powerful than these machines.
In the summer of 1968 Richard Nixon, who was running for President, visited the UNC computer center to talk to Erwin about a program developed for Manpower Development Corp (MDC) that would match unemployed people to jobs with their skills. The meeting was covered by all the major network news programs and most national newspapers.
Erwin Danziger talks to Richard Nixon in 1968 shortly before he was elected president
Today Erwin Danziger is 81 and in good health, still enjoying life and the hobby he has had since he was a young boy, stamp collecting. Working for someone seems to have added longevity to his life. His Brother lived to 46, his Grandfather 72, and his father to 78. Erwin Danziger has also had a long and happy marriage. He married Betty Heath, daughter of UNC Economics Professor Milton Heath Sr. and they have two daughters, one who is now married to a Law Professor at George Mason University, and the other who is married to a Chemistry Professor at N.C. State.
Richard Nixon's visit to Chapel Hill in 1968 to meet Erwin Danziger
Comments:
Sylvia Taylor
3:42 AM Tue 5/18/2010
I have only recently (yesterday) made Erwin's acquaintance, via the net, and our mutual love of Philately. He very kindly directed me to the Chapel Hill site, and I have to admit, found the experience simply fascinating. I myself am English, still live in England, but feel such an affinity to America and her peoples, having been nurtured on a diet of Hollywood movies, wartime Big Bands, and early Marvel comics, in my formative years. Unfortunately, I am unable to share memories of Chapel Hill, never having visited, but I am a firm believer in common parallels running through the world's societies. We all laugh and cry, experience sorrows and joys, love and heartbreak. On that note, may I share a little something I wrote some time ago, when during a spell of ill-health, I was feeling very vulnerable, and keeping a weather eye open for the grim reaper :-
TERMINAL THOUGHTS.
In the twilight of our years,
As the spectre of our ultimate departure hovers,
Ever present,
Lying in ambush,
It is the memories of life,
That sparkle, star like, in the darkening skies.
Brilliant gems of sights, sounds, smells and feelings,
Emotions that come tumbling into an overcrowded mind,
Self perpetuating, one triggering another,
Explosions of emotion, kaleidoscoping tumultuously,
Then the tears, like soft summer rain,
Coursing through what remains of life,
With it's remembered joys and sorrows,
Heartaches and ecstasies,
Love remembered,
Calmness descending,
Tranquil peace,
Acceptance.
The End.
God Bless all you good people of Chapel Hill, and I wish to thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing your beloved memories with me, and all visitors to your site. More power to your elbow.
Warmest regards from a not so very Merry England,
Sylvia.
Sarah Geer
12:08 PM Sun 2/7/2010
My dad used to talk about seeing the Danziger "boys" wearing lederhosen and digging out the basement under the candy store (which became the Rathskellar).
I enjoyed the picture of the big UNIVAC computer room, which I remember as being in a new annex behind Phillips Hall. I took a computer science course in the early 1970s, and remember juggling my tray of laboriously punched computer cards to run a simple program on that huge machine. The cards were thick, but the machine was tempermental and easily jammed, so the phrase for that era of the computer era was "Do not fold, bend, spindle or mutilate." The computer area was one of the few air conditioned rooms on campus, to keep the vacuum tube machinery functional and cool.
Peter Cates
9:35 AM Sun 2/7/2010
Thanks for all you have done to honor the memory of Chapel Hill.
Nancy House
2:37 PM Sat 2/6/2010
What an interesting man and family. I wonder if Erwin is a chocolate and/or coffee connoisseur from his days of working in his father's store.
Mary Womble
8:27 PM Fri 2/5/2010
I must confess I lived in Chapel Hill from 1959 to 1998 and had never heard of Erwin Danziger, but I think you are right he is the most amazing member of the family for what he accomplished and breaking out of the family mold.
It looks like he must have got his college degree in just a couple of years if the dates in your article are correct. Do you know if his daughters went to Chapel Hill schools? I can not recall ever meeting any young Danziger girls, but I did know Ted's two sons.
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Chapel Hill is located on a hill whose only distinguishing feature in the 18th century was a small chapel on top called New Hope Chapel. This church was built in 1752 and is currently the location of The Carolina Inn. The town was founded in 1819, and chartered in 1851.
What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well or the bell or the stone walls. or the crisp October nights. No, our love for this place is based upon the fact that it is as it was meant to be, The University of the People.
-- Charles Kuralt
Dark Side of the Hill -- Pink Floyd, the creators of the most popular album in history, Dark Side of the Moon, took the second half of their name from Floyd Council, a Chapel Hill native, and great blues singer and guitarist. He once belonged to a group called "The Chapel Hillbillies".
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Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
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There would probably be no Chapel Hill if the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees in 1793 had not chosen land across from New Hope Chapel for the location of the university. By 1800 there were about 100 people living in thirty houses surrounding the campus.
The University North Carolina's first student was Hinton James, who enrolled in February, 1795. There is now a dormitory on the campus named in his honor.
The University of North Carolina was closed from 1870 to 1875 because of lack of state funding.
William Ackland left his art collection and $1.25 million to Duke University in 1940 on the condition that he would be buried in the art museum that the University was to build with his bequest. Duke rejected this condition even though members of the Duke Family are buried in Duke Chapel. What followed was a long and acrimonious legal battle between Ackland relatives who now wanted the inheritance, Rollins College, and the University of North Carolina, each attempting to receive the funds. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and in 1949 UNC was awarded the money for the museum. Ackland is buried near the museum's entrance. When the museum first opened, in the early sixties, there were rumors that his remains were leaking out of the mausoleum.
The official name of the Arboretum on the University of North Carolina campus is the Coker Arboretum. It is named after Dr. William Cocker, the University's first botany professor. It occupies a little more than five acres. It was founded in 1903.
Chapel Hill's main street has always been called Franklin Street. It was named after Benjamin Franklin in the early 1790s.
Chapel Hill High School and Chapel Hill Junior High were on Franklin Street in the same location as University Square until the mid 1960s.
The Colonial Drug Store at 450 West Franklin Street was owned and operated by John Carswell. It was famous for a fresh-squeezed carbonated orange beverage called a "Big O". In the early 1970s, I managed the Record and Tape Center next door, and must have had over 100 of those drinks. The Colonial Drug Store closed in 1996.
Sutton's Drugstore, which opened in 1923, has one of the last soda fountains in the South. It is one of the few businesses remaining on Franklin Street that was in operation when I was growing up in the 1950s.
Future President Gerald Ford lived in Chapel Hill twice. First when he was 24, in 1938, he took a law couse in summer school at UNC. He lived in the Carr Building, which was a law school dormitory. At the same time, Richard Nixon, the man he served under as Vice President, was attending law school at Duke. In 1942, Ford returned to Chapel Hill to attend the U.S. Navy's Pre-Flight School training program. He lived in a rental house on Hidden Hills Drive.
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I lived in Chapel Hill during my ninth grade in school. Erwin was a classmate. My sister worked at Danzigers, and as soon as I was 14, I worked there, too. I have a letter that Erwin wrote to me the summer after ninth grade. Very soon my husband and I plan to visit Chapel Hill. I think I'll return the letter to Erwin. It's very funny. Sydney A. Calhoun nee Tardy