Marylin Burke

Marylin C. Burke
Other names	Marilyn Burke; Marylin C. Burke
Occupations	Author and secretary

Marylin C. Burke (15 Mar 1922–26 Oct 1996) was executive secretary to Dale and Dorothy Carnegie.^[1] She was allowed to accompany Dale Carnegie to the (usually) all-male meeting of the Brooklyn Rotary Club in 1955.

Born in Medford, Massachusetts, Marylin Irene Coney was the daughter of Donald Ira Coney and Ada May Martin; however, by 1941, she had changed her last name to that of her mother's second husband, James J. Burke.^[2] She graduated from The Bryant & Stratton Commercial School in Boston and worked as a stenographer before being hired as author Dale Carnegie's secretary in 1950.^[3] After six years, she became the secretary for his wife, Dorothy.

Burke wrote The Executive Secretary: Techniques for Success in a Secretarial Career (Doubleday, New York, 216pp), a guidebook published in 1959 that cautions against demonstrations of female sexuality in the office, as well as offering practical tips for women who had the determination and drive to go from the steno pool to the personal secretaries of CEOs.^[1][4]

Burke married twice: first to Robert W. Seely, with whom she had three children. After she was widowed in 1993, Burke married John W. Utterback.

She died on 26 October 1996 in a hospital in Waynesboro, PA.^[5]

References

1. Berebitsky, Julie (2006). "The Joy of Work: Helen Gurley Brown, Gender, and Sexuality in the White-Collar Office". Journal of the History of Sexuality. 15 (1): 89–127. doi:10.1353/sex.2006.0047.
2. "U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 1 Oct 2025.
3. Brennan, Lawrence D. (Feb 1953). "Secretary to Dale Carnegie". Today's Secretary. 55 (6): 283–286.
4. Burke, Marylin C. (1959). The Executive Secretary: Techniques for Success in a Secretarial Career. Doubleday & Company.
5. "Marylin S. Utterback". Public Opinion. Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. 30 Oct 1996. p. 4. Retrieved 1 Oct 2025.