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2WICE BOOKS
Operation Match
Jeff Tarr and the Invention of Computer Dating
By Patsy Tarr. Edited by Susan Johnson, Ellen Lupton, Jim Larkin.
The improbable and untold story of the college student who invented the world’s first computer dating service
In the fall of 1962, Jeff Tarr, a teenager from a small town in Maine, began his freshman year at Harvard University. By the time he graduated, he had developed and launched the first-ever computer dating service, upending courting rituals at colleges across the United States and becoming a minor celebrity in his own right. Tarr’s innovation arrived in a nation whose campuses were still in step with 1950s notions of morality, propriety and tradition—many northeastern college dormitories were still segregated by sex, and bars weren’t a place for singles to meet and mingle. In just a few semesters, Tarr brought computer algorithms to the people, propelling America’s youngest adults headlong into the swinging ’60s. As the sexual revolution and women’s rights movement gained steam, and as civil rights victories mounted and the Vietnam War dragged on, Tarr’s new vision for how young men and women should pair off rode a surging wave of cultural change. Operation Match follows Tarr’s adventure from the dateless Saturday night where a little beer and banter with his roommate sparked an idea, through the process of perfecting a dating questionnaire, to late nights feeding thousands of punch cards into a rented IBM mainframe, to matching tens of thousands of young men and women, for better or for worse. It also traces his transformation from an anonymous, awkward, Kennedy-loving college man to a voice of the New Frontier, appearing on the Today Show and the Tonight Show and, of course, having more dates than he could ever have dreamed of. Patsy Tarr met Jeff Tarr the old-fashioned way: through a blind date. She has been a lifelong enthusiast of dance and in 1988 founded the 2wice Arts Foundation to better support the field through the publication of two award-winning magazines, Dance Ink and 2wice.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Operation Match.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
New York Social Diary
David Patrick Columbia
It is fascinating on several levels because that college junior looking for a date for a Saturday night date actually had the brains to envision 'an ideal market for his product.' And it was coming into 'the market' at the perfect timing of the IBM computers and all computers afterwards, as well as its enormous change and effect of social behavior even sixty years later.
The Wall Street Journal
Barbara Spindel
Almost 40 years before Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook, [Jeff Tarr] harnessed cutting-edge technology to connect college students.
Parade
Michael Glitz
[A] quirky little work of nonfiction about computer dating.
CNN Style
Tacita Quinn
Operation Match was a hugely influential moment in dating history.
The Washington Free Beacon
Haley Strack
A sweet homage.
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Thursday, January 16 from 7–8 PM, Books & Books Coral Gables presents an evening with Patsy Tarr discussing Operation Match: Jeff Tarr and the Invention of Computer Dating, the improbable and untold story of the college student who invented the world’s first computer dating service.
This event is FREE and open to the public and books will be available for purchase the night of the event! Please RSVP to attend. continue to blog
Thursday, August 15 at 5 PM, East Hampton bookseller BookHampton presents Jeff Tarr—creator of the world's first dating service, developed when he was a 1962 Harvard freshman—in conversation with Patsy Tarr, author of the new book, Operation Match: Jeff Tarr and the Invention of Computer Dating. Discover how Jeff transformed college social life and sparked a cultural revolution! Reserve a spot here. continue to blog
Thirty years before broad dating platforms like Match.com, forty years before niche sites like CougarLife and FarmersOnly, and fifty years before the total swipe-right takeover of apps like Grindr, Bumble, Feeld and Tinder, there was Operation Match—the very first computer dating service, developed and launched in 1965 by a curious Harvard undergrad from Auburn, Maine. Spreads here are from Operation Match: Jeff Tarr and the Invention of Computer Dating, authored by real-time Jeff Tarr authority, Patsy Tarr. Not only does the book—designed by world-renowned consultancy Pentagram—detail the history of Operation Match with a wealth of archival materials, essays and iconic quotations that build a multi-dimensional portrait of the times, but it gets into important moments and societal changes like the Kennedy assassinations, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and feminism that would forever change our culture, and thus the dating game. continue to blog
FORMAT: Pbk, 6.75 x 9.5 in. / 144 pgs / 61 color / 105 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $35.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $52 GBP £30.00 ISBN: 9780972388627 PUBLISHER: 2wice Books AVAILABLE: 9/3/2024 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: WORLD
Operation Match Jeff Tarr and the Invention of Computer Dating
Published by 2wice Books. By Patsy Tarr. Edited by Susan Johnson, Ellen Lupton, Jim Larkin.
The improbable and untold story of the college student who invented the world’s first computer dating service
In the fall of 1962, Jeff Tarr, a teenager from a small town in Maine, began his freshman year at Harvard University. By the time he graduated, he had developed and launched the first-ever computer dating service, upending courting rituals at colleges across the United States and becoming a minor celebrity in his own right. Tarr’s innovation arrived in a nation whose campuses were still in step with 1950s notions of morality, propriety and tradition—many northeastern college dormitories were still segregated by sex, and bars weren’t a place for singles to meet and mingle. In just a few semesters, Tarr brought computer algorithms to the people, propelling America’s youngest adults headlong into the swinging ’60s. As the sexual revolution and women’s rights movement gained steam, and as civil rights victories mounted and the Vietnam War dragged on, Tarr’s new vision for how young men and women should pair off rode a surging wave of cultural change.
Operation Match follows Tarr’s adventure from the dateless Saturday night where a little beer and banter with his roommate sparked an idea, through the process of perfecting a dating questionnaire, to late nights feeding thousands of punch cards into a rented IBM mainframe, to matching tens of thousands of young men and women, for better or for worse. It also traces his transformation from an anonymous, awkward, Kennedy-loving college man to a voice of the New Frontier, appearing on the Today Show and the Tonight Show and, of course, having more dates than he could ever have dreamed of.
Patsy Tarr met Jeff Tarr the old-fashioned way: through a blind date. She has been a lifelong enthusiast of dance and in 1988 founded the 2wice Arts Foundation to better support the field through the publication of two award-winning magazines, Dance Ink and 2wice.
