The subject of the September Object of the Month exhibit by the Institute Archives and Special Collections is the Physical Science Study Committee, a group of university physics professors and high school physics teachers, led by MIT’s Jerrold Zacharias and Francis Friedman, who created new curricula for the teaching of introductory courses in physics.
Further information about the Physical Science Study Committee can be found in the Physical Science Study Committee Oral History Collection (MC 602), the Jerrold Zacharias Papers (MC 31), the Educational Services Incorporated Records (MC 79), the Physical Science Study Committee Records (MC 626), and other sources in the Institute Archives and Special Collections, 14N-118.
The Institute Archives and Special Collections August Object of the Month is President Theodore Roosevelt’s letter appointing John Ripley Freeman (MIT 1876) one of six “engineers of high standing” to inspect and report on construction of the Panama Canal.
The Archives houses a rich collection of Freeman’s papers, including many photographs of the Panama Canal project. Among his many undertakings was a detailed presentation of designs for MIT’s Cambridge campus, “Study No. 7.”
Also in the Archives’ collections are the papers of Allen Hazen, another of the engineers appointed by President Roosevelt. Hazen, who attended MIT in 1888, was the subject of an earlier exhibit.
Pictured here: the six engineers. Freeman and Hazen, 1st row, 1st & 2nd from left
The Institute Archives and Special Collections has launched An MIT Chronology, a timeline detailing some of the major developments of the Institute’s first 145 years. A work in progress, the Chronology is ultimately intended to provide an extensive outline of the history of the Institute from its birth to the present, with authenticity provided by The Source for each entry–a citation to the relevant archival collection.
The July Object of the Month exhibit by the Institute Archives and Special Collections is about the use of the squid in nerve cell research led by Francis O. Schmitt, a pioneer in modern biological research and the study of the brain, and founder of the Neurosciences Research Program. Dr. Schmitt came to MIT as professor of biology in 1941. He was head of the Department of Biology from 1942 to 1955, when he was appointed Institute Professor. He was Institute Professor Emeritus at the time of his death in 1995.Browse other exhibits for a sample of the collections in the Institute Archives and Special Collections that document the history of MIT and the accomplishments of its faculty and staff.
A live webcast of Commencement on Friday, June 9, will be broadcast beginning at 8:20 a.m. Tom Rosko, Head of the Institute Archives & Special Collections, will share the microphone with Dean of Admissions Marilee Jones to bring the festivities to life on your computer screen and add some historical context.
The Institute Archives and Special Collections has chosen as its May Object of the Month exhibit “A Whimsical Map of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1944-5,” a humorous look at life at the Institute, drawn by Professor Frederick Morris, a faculty member in the Department of Geology from 1927 to 1962.Browse other exhibits for a taste of the serious as well as the light side of MIT documented in the collections in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Celebrate Founder’s Day with members of the Archives reference staff. Stop by the table in the hallway outside Killian Hall to find out how to mine the historical treasures of MIT — and view exhibits of some of the treasures.
Candy and giveaways
Enter drawing for a copy of Mind and Hand: The Birth of MIT, compliments of MIT Press
Shown here: Charter granted to the Institute by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, April 10, 1861
In observance of the anniversary of the granting of MIT’s charter on April 10, 1861, the Institute Archives and Special Collections has chosen to focus this month’s Object of the Month exhibit on MIT’s Centennial celebration. Some of the many letters and telegrams received by the Institute on the occasion of its 100th birthday are displayed on a poster opposite 14N-118 and on the Archives’ web site. The warmth and enthusiasm of the greetings celebrate the success of William Barton Rogers’s plan for a new kind of institution and illustrate MIT’s influence on the international scientific and educational communities.
In the fall of 1960 MIT mounted an exhibition of forty works by Andrew Wyeth in the Hayden Gallery. March’s Object of the Month exhibit by the Institute Archives and Special Collections displays a letter from Wyeth to MIT’s first lady, Catherine Stratton, setting forth his reasons for declining an invitation to an opening cocktail party. The letter is from the Catherine Nelson Stratton Papers, which include her “Social Book,” records of entertainment at the President’s House while Julius Stratton was president of MIT.
Learn more about the Archives’ collections and MIT’s history by browsing previous exhibits.
The subject of the February Object of the Month exhibit by the Institute Archives and Special Collections is “Harbor View: Radar Training at MIT, 1941-1945,” one of the programs sponsored by the U.S. government at MIT during World War II.
Browse previous exhibits for a sample of the scope of the collections in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Reference Archivist Nora Murphy of the MIT Institute Archives and Special Collections will share facts and anecdotes about MIT’s sixteen presidents - from the first (Rogers) to the current (Hockfield) - today, January 20, 11am-12:00pm, 56-114.
Tuesday, January 17, Archivist Ewa Basinska and Physics Librarian Jennifer Harter present an IAP session, Seeking Yesterday’s Science: Resources in the History of Physics. The time is 2:00 - 3:00 pm; the place, 14N-132.
Come celebrate the tercentenary of Ben Franklin, a statesman, writer, and a scientist, born in Boston, on January 17, 1706. Look through an early edition of Franklin’s Experiments and Observations on Electricity and other archival materials as you learn about resources in the history of physics.
We are offering an introduction to the sources in the history of physics from ancient times through present. Together, we will look at the wide range of resources, from manuscript collections to electronic databases. Our perspective is historical rather than scientific, so no math background is required.
Contact: Ewa Basinska, 14N-118, x8-5533, basinska@mit.edu
Ji-Hye Ham, a second-year student in Architecture, has created an exhibit in Lobby 10 in fulfillment of an assignment to reveal or draw attention to something overlooked in a public space. Using photographs and information from the Institute Archives and Special Collections, she has created a moving display focusing on the war memorials engraved on the Lobby 10 walls. There are more pictures of the exhibit on the Archives’ web site.
William Barton Rogers was born December 7, 1804. A noted geologist and educator, Rogers began to organize and promote his ideas for a “polytechnic†institute as early as the 1840s. His vision of a new kind of education came to fruition in the founding of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1861. He served as MIT’s first president and his life would end, in 1882, in service to the Institute.
The December Object of the Month exhibit by the Institute Archives and Special Collections features the papers (1944-2000) of Peter E. Glaser, a pioneer in the study of solar energy. A guide to the collection is available on the Archives’ web site in PDF format, and the papers are available for research in Room 14N-118, Monday through Thursday, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, with 24 hours’ advance notice.
Browse previous exhibits for a sample of the scope of the collections in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. Shown here is the Van de Graaff generator from an earlier exhibit.
By popular demand, the publication “Specifications for Thesis Preparation” is once again available on the Archives web site in HTML form, as well as PDF. If you want the entire booklet, you can print the PDF version. If you only need to refer to a particular section, use the links from the Table of Contents in the HTML version.
The Institute Archives and Special Collections houses the historical record of MIT in the form of over 500 separate collections. Guides (“finding aidsâ€) to a number of these administrative collections are now available online as PDF documents. Among them are the records of the president and the chancellor during Jerome Wiesner’s presidency (1971-1980) and the records of the Servomechanisms Lab (1940-1959).
In the course of processing a collection, the records are arranged, described, and housed for permanent storage. The end product is a finding aid—the tool that provides information about what is in the collection and helps researchers find the materials they need. Hundreds of guides to collections are available for use in the Archives reading room, 14N-118, and the Archives will continue to add them to its web site.
This month’s Object of the Month exhibit by the Institute Archives and Special Collections highlights the growing number of MIT theses available electronically in DSpace. The paper copies of the more than 110,000 theses written since the first class graduated in 1868 are among the collections in the Institute Archives. The Archives also holds the official records of the Institute, papers of MIT faculty members, MIT publications, and rare books.
Each month the Archives exhibits an “object†to illustrate the richness and variety of its collections and invite their further exploration. A poster is displayed in the exhibit case opposite Room 14N-118 (and the following month in the Libraries’ kiosk at the Stata Center), and a version is created for the Web. Browsing the exhibits at http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/mithistory/exhibits-object.html may whet your appetite for more information about MIT’s history and the extraordinary men and women who are a part of that history.
Two MIT professors and nine undergraduates toured mining camps in July of 1873. Would you like to know more? Check out Professor Richards’s 1873 blog antecedent in an exhibit on the web site of the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
