Caltech Archives

Congratulations to our colleague Loma Karklins, who is retiring today after 44 years processing collections, producing oral histories, curating exhibitions, and assisting thousands of researchers in the Archives. Read her experiences in Caltech Magazine: https://magazine.caltech.edu/post/socaltech-loma-karklins

#SoCaltech: Loma Karklins — Caltech Magazine “The reading of correspondence from the past is probably more interesting than it is from today. Nobody's going to write an email like they wrote a letter in the old days. Not every email's going to be interesting. A lot of it is, ‘Meet me for coffee.’ If you look at some of our older collecti...

For this we share this post card sent Nov. 1919 from "cold" & "not so inviting" Galway, Ireland to Richard C. Tolman in Washington D. C. from Woz or Naq A. Lerusn. (That’s not the right name, is it?)

“Electric vehicles have been a focus of research for the Caltech community for decades,” from the chemistry of air pollution to an electric vehicle race with MIT to AeroVironment, GM, AC Propulsion, and Tesla: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/todays-electric-vehicles-owe-debt-to-caltech-alumni

Today's Electric Vehicles Owe Debt to Caltech Alumni A cadre of Caltech alums helped foster the current EV landscape, changing the face of personal transportation.

In 1972, undergraduate P. Thomas Carroll waved a peace sign to a painting at the Beckman Laboratories of Behavioral Biology construction site. The painting, by Sarah Ingersoll, imitated the plaque which Carl Sagan, Frank Drake, and Linda Salzman Sagan designed for the Pioneer 10.

Read more about the “Message to the Milky Way” and this photograph in Engineering & Science itself:
https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/304/1/milky.pdf
https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/608/2/Letters.pdf
https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/609/1/ES52.3.1989.pdf =44

In 1971, Caltech’s architect “requested a temporary interruption of gravity for the purpose of making certain major alterations of campus design.” Practical applications of a world-class gravity research program!

“The yearning for and the satisfaction gained from mathematical insight brings the subject near to art.” Read the story of Olga Taussky-Todd, the first woman professor in mathematics at Caltech, and of her life-long dedication to the mathematical arts: http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechOH:OH_Todd_O

The HistoryMakers collects oral history interviews with African American professionals across many fields, including scientists and engineers who have studied or worked at Caltech. For those in California, they’re available with a Los Angeles Public Library card: https://lapl.org/historymakers

Physicist William J. Evans received his BS from Caltech in 1987, and went on to manage the high pressure physics group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He now leads the physics division there. https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/william-evans

Chemist Joseph Gordon II became a Caltech assistant professor in 1970, enlisted in the U.S. Navy, then returned. After he was was denied tenure in 1975, he managed IBM’s interfacial electrochemistry and lithium ion battery groups and worked at Applied Materials. https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/joseph-gordon-ii

Materials scientist Sossina Haile was a Caltech professor from 1996 to 2016, when she moved to Northwestern University. Her research in electrochemistry has focused on fuel cells and other sustainable energy technologies. https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/sossina-haile

Theoretical physicist Sylvester James “Jim” Gates researches supersymmetry, supergravity, and superstring theory. From 1980 to 1982, he worked with Richard Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann as a Caltech postdoc. He went on to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Maryland, Howard University, and Brown University. https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/sylvester-james-gates-jr

Chemist Grant D. Venerable, II spoke about his father Grant Venerable, including his experience as Caltech’s first Black student and careers in mining engineering and manufacturing blackboard erasers. https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/grant-venerable

The HistoryMakers Digital Archive | Los Angeles Public Library The HistoryMakers Digital Archive is an easy-to-use online database of thousands of African American interviews from a broad range of backgrounds and experiences.

102 years ago today, Throop College of Technology changed its name to California Institute of Technology, acknowledging its transformation into a science and engineering research institution. Two years ago, we opened “Becoming Caltech: Building a Research Community, 1910–1930,” an exhibition on that history. We’re looking forward to reopening it when Caltech buildings again open to the public, and in the meantime are happy to open it for those affiliated with Caltech by appointment. In 2020, we also recorded “Becoming Caltech, 1910–1930: Presentations from the Archives”: https://www.library.caltech.edu/becoming-caltech-presentations

Caltech physicist William Fowler is welcomed by the campus community soon after the announcement of his 1983 , holding the celebratory sweatshirt he received from his colleagues at a The Yerkes Observatory conference.

Our colleague David Zierler directs the Caltech Heritage Project and contributes oral histories to our collections. Read more about his work and perspective on Caltech’s history.

Capturing Caltech's Rich History New historian to document Caltech's heritage.

University Archivist Peter Collopy recently presented a Caltech physics colloquium lecture on “Iterating Infrastructure from High Volts to X-Rays to Nuclear Physics: Early Caltech Science in the Archives.” Watch it here!

Iterating Infrastructure from High Volts to X-Rays to Nuclear Physics - Peter S. Collopy - 1/13/22 Speaker: Peter S. Collopy - CaltechHost: Dr. Sterl Phinney - CaltechDate: January 13, 2022Title: Iterating Infrastructure from High Volts to X-Rays to Nuclea...

For five decades Caltech professor of history and social science emeritus J. Morgan Kousser has studied and published on historical patterns of minority voting, discrimination, and race relations in the United States. He has been an expert witness in voting rights cases nationwide. In 2011, he became Caltech's first humanities and social science professor to be awarded the Feynman Prize for Excellence in Teaching. Now the historian contemplates his own history in a series of interviews with the Caltech Archives: https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechOH:OH_Kousser_M

On New Year’s Day, 1931, a special guest had a front seat to the Rose Parade: Albert Einstein, who visited Caltech and Pasadena, California during the winter. Here he sits with his wife Elsa and Pasadena notables Arthur Fleming and Lora and John Baer.

50 years ago today, on the eve of NASA/JPL’s Mariner 9 entering Mars orbit, Caltech hosted a symposium with leading scientists and science-fiction authors discussing the red planet. Learn more at https://archives.caltech.edu/talk-archive/mars_and_the_mind.html

South African archbishop and anti-apartheid leader Desmond Tutu turns 90 today. In 1990, he spoke at Caltech before what the Tech described as “the greatest gathering of souls on campus for a single event in several years”:https://campuspubs.library.caltech.edu/1521/1/1990_05_25_91_28.pdf

For , we present Russell Porter’s stunning drawings of Caltech’s Palomar Mountain 200-inch telescope. See https://archives.caltech.edu/photogallery/porter-obs.html for more about him. His drawings will be featured in our contribution to Pacific Standard Time in 2024: https://www.library.caltech.edu/pst-2024

Metal canisters were once used to store film reels—not ideal for preservation, but certainly very charming!

A series of four oral histories collected by the Caltech Women’s Club are now online. The interviewees share their observations and perspectives on the early history of the Club and on social life on campus in the 1910s and 20s. https://oralhistories.library.caltech.edu/view/subjects/caltech=5Fwomens=5Fclub.html

“Archival research… contextualizes our… moment in broader narratives from the past, reminds us of ways people have… fought against systems of bigotry, & encourages us to conceive of new possibilities for our shared future.” —Nivetha Karthikeyan ’20, https://www.alumni.caltech.edu/techer/memory-bank

Techer | Memory Bank The Milton and Rosalind Chang Career Exploration Prize empowers alumna to bring tales of social justice back to the collective consciousness.

On this date in 1633, the Roman Inquisition sentenced Galileo for advocating heliocentrism and placed him under house arrest, where he remained until death. Our collections include Galileo’s 1632 Dialogo, which prompted his prosecution, and this 1878 engraving by Fr. L. Meyer.

Last week Caltech honored its graduates with the institute’s alma mater, “Hail CIT.” The song was first performed at commencement a century ago. It was composed by Manton Barnes, who graduated that year. Here’s how the song came to be:https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/641/1/ES12.2.1948.pdf =3

“The world is full of both poets and carpenters; I believe each of us has within us some capabilities for both.” 50 years ago today, Caltech’s Commencement speaker was alumnus James Fletcher (PhD ’48 physics), the newly appointed NASA administrator. Read his address in Caltech News:https://campuspubs.library.caltech.edu/2321/1/1971_07_05_06.pdf =3

Pasadena artist and curator Jay Belloli passed away on May 21. From 1982 to 1985, Belloli was curator of Caltech’s Baxter Art Gallery, records of which can be found among our collections and at Smithsonian's Archives of American Art: https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/baxter-art-gallery-records-8504. Pasadena Now and the Los Angeles Times published obituaries: https://www.pasadenanow.com/main/city-mourns-passing-of-artist-and-curator-jay-belloli/, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-06-03/jay-belloli-pasadena-curator-jpl-space-photography-dies

Nuclear physicist Felix H. Boehm, Caltech William L. Valentine Professor of Physics, Emeritus, passed away on May 25, 2021 at 96. Read the Caltech obituary: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/felix-h-boehm-19242021. Learn more about Boehm’s life and career from our oral history: https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechOH:OH_Boehm_F.

Albert Einstein experimenting with rotational motion at a Caltech trustee's house in Santa Barbara in 1933.
Learn more on the physicist’s visits to our institute at
https://archives.caltech.edu/exhibits/einstein.html

In spring 1974, biology junior Elizabeth McLeod of Pasadena became the first woman elected president of the Associated Students of the California Institute of Technology. She later became a genetics professor at the University of Southern Alabama. Read her interview in Caltech News:https://campuspubs.library.caltech.edu/2351/1/1974_05_08_04.pdf =2

Today is ! It is digital this year, but under normal circumstances our campus would see the most unusual scenes: seniors ditch classes and construct elaborate puzzles and treasure hunts for other students. Visit our Ditch Day gallery: http://archives.caltech.edu/exhibits/DitchDay_b&w

Read our new interview with Arden Albee, Caltech emeritus professor of geology and planetary science and a key figure in lunar and Mars exploration. He served as Jet Propulsion Laboratory chief scientist and led multiple NASA missions: https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechOH:OH_Albee_A

in 1971 Caltech’s Donald E. Baxter, M.D., Hall of the Humanities and Social Sciences was dedicated, two years after groundbreaking. The celebration underscored Caltech’s commitment to these subjects as indispensable in the education of every scientist and engineer.