The Robert Andrews Millikan collection at the California Institute of Technology : guide to a microfilm edition

Abstract

The microfilm publication of the papers of Robert Andrews Millikan, American physicist, science adviser, and first executive head of the California Institute of Technology, consists of 80 rolls of film. They span a century of American political, social, and intellectual history. The documents cover the years 1847 to 1953, the year of Millikan's death, but the core of the collection consists of the official papers generated by Millikan after his move to Pasadena in 1921. The collection, which includes more than 125,000 pages of letters, notebooks, unpublished speeches, addresses, lecture notes, and family papers, is the property of the California Institute of Technology and is housed in the Institute Archives on the campus. Apart from Millikan's own scientific work, the collection reveals the central role he played in the development of physics in the United states and in national scientific affairs from 1914 through World War II. For these reasons, his papers are widely regarded as one of the richest collections of original documents bearing on the history of twentieth-century science. The materials pertaining to Robert A. Millikan at the California Institute of Technology are extensive. In addition to the collected papers with which this microfilm publication is primarily concerned, there are in the Institute Archives the medals, citations, diplomas, academic regalia, and other awards given to Millikan in recognition of his scientific, scholarly, and civic achievements. A small segment of Millikan's private library, about 200 volumes, is also housed in the Archives, along with selected pieces of scientific apparatus and hundreds of photographs of Millikan, his family, and colleagues. Several sound recordings of talks given by Millikan have also been preserved. The Millikan collection is divided into 10 series. The original collection consists of 99 boxes; the microfilm edition of 80 numbered rolls.