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Hogg, Helen (Battles) Sawyer, 1905-,. Oral history interview with Helen Sawyer Hogg, 1979 August 17.

Title: Oral history interview with Helen Sawyer Hogg, 1979 August 17.

Training at Mount Holyoke, 1926, and at Harvard College Observatory; work for Harlow Shapley on variable stars in globular clusters; move to the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory and then to David Dunlap Observatory in 1934 when husband changed positions; research activities at David Dunlap; continued contact with Shapley; David Dunlap Observatory during World War II; popular writing and organizational activities; program director for the Astronomy Program at National Science Foundation (NSF), 1955-1956; recollections of Harlow Shapley. Also prominently mentioned are: Annie Jump Cannon, John S. Plaskett, Jan Schildt, Robert Julius Trumpler; Harvard University, and Toronto Star.

ArchivalResource: Transcript, 15 pp.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/80052449 View

Van de Kamp, Peter, 1901-. Dedication of McDonald Observatory at Fort Davis, Texas [motion picture] / taken by Peter Van de Kamp.

Title: Dedication of McDonald Observatory at Fort Davis, Texas [motion picture] / taken by Peter Van de Kamp. 1939.

Van de Camp's film of the celebration (including a Texas barbecue) commemorating the dedication of McDonald Observatory in 1939. Among the attendees were: Walter Baade, Bart Jan Bok, Edwin F. Carpenter, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Heber Doust Curtis, Christian Thomas Elvey, Edwin Powell Hubble, Gerald Peter Kuiper, C.A. Robert Lundin, Robert Raynolds McMath, Edward Arthur Milne, Jason John Nassau, Jan Hendrik Oort, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, John Stanley Plaskett, Frank E. Ross, Henry Norris Russell, Jan Schilt, Carl K. Seyfert, Harlow Shapley, Frederick Slocum, Otto Struve, Robert Julius Trumpler, and William Hammond Wright. The film also includes scenes of the town of Fort Davis, Texas.

ArchivalResource: 1 film reel (11 min.) : si., b&w and col. ; 16 mm.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/78112240 View

Weaver, Harold Francis, 1917-. Oral history interview with Harold F. Weaver, 1991 September 3-13.

Title: Oral history interview with Harold F. Weaver, 1991 September 3-13.

This oral history provides a broad overview of the career of Harold Francis Weaver, Professor Emeritus of Astronomy at the University of California at Berkeley. Weaver is a native of California, and received his A.B. and Ph.D. at Berkeley. Weaver's dissertation was officially supervised by Robert J. Trumpler, and utilized observations obtained at Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories in cooperation with Walter Baade. Weaver was briefly a National Research Council postdoctoral fellow at Yerkes Observatory, and subsequently became involved in war-related work, intially in optics acquisition with the National Defense Research Committee, and later in isotope separation at the Berkeley Radional Lab as part of the Manhattan Project. Weaver was a staff member at Lick Observatory from 1945-1951, during which time he participated in a major eclipse expedition to Brazil. In 1951 he joined the faculty at Berkeley, where he has spent the remainder of his career. Weaver's early research focused on peculiar stars, star clusters, and stellar statistics. In 1958 he became the founding director of the Radio Astronomy Laboratory at Berkeley, and his subsequent research is concered with the interstellar medium. His contributions to this field include discovery of the first interstellar maser, and completion of large-scale surveys of interstellar hydrogen. Weaver has been involved in numerous committees at Berkeley, including Campus Planning and the Los Alamos-Lawrence Livermore Advisory Committees, and he has also made significant contributions to the leadership and financial management of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and the American Astronomical Society. The oral history includes biographical information on his family, including his wife Cecile, who is the daughter of Robert J. Trumpler. Introduction to the volume are provided by Weaver's Berkeley coleagues Hyron Spinrad and Carl Heiles. Weaver's Curriculum Vitae an Doctoral Examination Program are included as apendices, along with the illustrated text of a talk presented by weaver in 1993 describing the history of the Berekely Radio Astronomy Lab and its 85-foot telescope at Hat Creek Observatory.

ArchivalResource: Transcript: 128 p.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/83659798 View

Greenstein, Jesse L. (Jesse Leonard), 1909-2002. Oral history interview with Jesse Leonard Greenstein, 1974 July 31.

Title: Oral history interview with Jesse Leonard Greenstein, 1974 July 31.

Childhood in New York; high school experience at Horace Mann; Harvard undergraduate at the age of 15. Impressions of ordeal with Harlow Shapley. Depression years in the family business, return to a very changed Harvard in 1934. Thesis work on Interstellar Absorption (Bart Bok), Ph.D. 1937. Postdoc at Yerkes Observatory (Otto Struve) working on Upsilon Sagittarius. Develops the 140-degree camera (the Greenstein-Louis G. Henyey camera); work with Fred Whipple on radio signals from space (Karl Jansky, Grote Reber), Greenstein's and Reber's review article on classified radio detection work during World War II. Founding of the Astrophysics Department at Caltech. Radio astronomy in the mid-1950s. Work on white dwarfs from 1957 on. Own accomplishments as scientist and in personal life. Impressions of Martin Schwarzschild, Shapley, Reber, Fred Hoyle. Also prominently mentioned are: Walter Sydney Adams, Lloyd Viel Berkner, John Bolton, Leverett Davis, William Alfred Fowler, Leo Goldberg, Louis Henyey, Fred Hoyle, Edwin Powell Hubble, Milton Lasell Humason, Robert Hutchins, Karl Jansky, Gerard Peter Kuiper, Tom R. Matthews, Robert Reynolds McMath, Donald Howard Menzel, Paul Merrill, Rudolph Leo Bernhard Minkowski, William Wilson Morgan, Guido Münch, Beverly Oke, Donald Osterbrock, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, Harry Hemley Plaskett, Robert Richardson, Allan Sandage, Jan Schildt, Shklovsky, Charlotte Moore Sitterly, Lyman Spitzer, Edward Teller, Richard Chace Tolman, Robert Julius Trumpler, Merle Antony Tuve, Albrecht Otto Johannes Unsöld, Immanuel Velikofsky, Fred Whipple; Carnegie Institution of Washington, Hale Observatories, Harvard College Observatory, Lick Observatory, McDonald Observatory, McDonald Observatory Nebular spectrograph, National Science Foundation (U.S.), 100-inch Telescope, University of Chicago, and Vista Project.

ArchivalResource: Transcript, 45 pp.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/82303064 View

Shapley, Harlow, 1885-1972. Papers [microform], 1910-1923.

Title: Papers [microform], 1910-1923.

Consists of scientific correspondence from the period Shapley was at Mount Wilson Observatory. Also included are some items from the early years at Harvard that were not filed with the director's records. Topics include galaxies, globular clusters, variable stars, pulsation hypothesis, eclipsing binaries, stellar and nebular photometry, spectroscopy, and cosmology. Correspondents include Robert G. Aitken, Solon I. Bailey, Robert H. Baker, Edward E. Barnard, William W. Campbell, Julian L. Coolidge, Heber O. Curtis, Arthur S. Eddington, Henry G. Gale, George Ellery Hale, Ejnar Hertzsprung, Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn, Oliver D. Kellogg, Adrian van Maanen, Edward C. Pickering, D.S. Richardson, Henry N. Russell, Frank Schlesinger, Frederick H. Seares, Vesto M. Slipher, Joel Stebbins, Robert Trumpler, William M. Wheeler, Edwin B. Wilson, and Robert M. Yerkes.

ArchivalResource: 3 microfilm reels.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/80523781 View

Aller, Lawrence H. (Lawrence Hugh), 1913-2003. Oral history interview with Lawrence H. Aller, 1979 August 18.

Title: Oral history interview with Lawrence H. Aller, 1979 August 18.

Childhood; early interest in science (astronomy). Member of Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 1928. Special student at University of California at Berkeley, 1931, with Donald H. Menzel's help. Regular student from 1932; comments on teachers and fellow students at Berkeley Student Observatory. Summer assistantship at Lick Observatory (Nicholas Mayall, Arthur B. Wyse), life at Lick Observatory. To Harvard University in 1937 for graduate studies; comparison between Harvard and Berkeley/Lick; teaching assistant at Radcliffe; 3-year membership in Harvard Society of Fellows, from 1939, of enormous importance for his development; works with Menzel and James G. Baker on the Theory of Physical Processes in Gaseous Nebulae, 1937; Analysis of the Atmospheres of the A-type Dwarfs Gamma Geminorum and Sirius based on data from Louis Berman; Jesse Greenstein. Comments on Harvard Summer Schools, Harlow Shapley's "Hollow Square." Volunteer teacher of elementary physics courses from 1942 at Harvard. Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, 1943-1945; work involved evaluation of the chemists and the Counting Group's output from the electromagnetic separation process. Job offer from University of Indiana (Frank Edmunson) accepted due to cutback at Radiation Laboratory. Indiana years, 1945-1948, very productive (drafts for two astrophysics books); problems getting telescope time at Yerkes Observatory and unsatisfactory living conditions leads to. Acceptance of a promising tenured position at Michigan, a center with very active research due to Leo Goldberg; Robert McMath's influence in the department; Keith Pierce and Aller's work on infrared solar spectrum. Work performed at Mt. Wilson Observatory and Dominion Astrophysical Observatory. Goldberg resigns in 1959; comments on Aller's decision to leave Michigan; discussions of funding; "over-head" (Aller's talk at an AAAS Meeting); comparison of Lick Observatory and Kitt Peak Observatory policies. Work at Mt. Stromlo Observatory, Australia on sabbatical visits, 1960, 1968-1969, 1977-1978. Overview of opinions of the present state of astronomy. Comments on personal life, wife and children.

ArchivalResource: Sound recordings: 5 sound cassettes (ca. 4.5 hr.), 1 session.Transcript: 69 p.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/82694647 View