An electrical engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur, Elihu Thomson was an innovator in electrification in both a technical and corporate sense. With interests that ranged from the technical (electrical meters, high-pressure steam engines, dynamos, generators) to scientific (fused quartz optics, X-rays), Thomson acquired over 700 patents in his career, and in 1882, founded one of the early electrical corporations in the United States, the Thomson-Houston Company, which merged with the Edison Electric Company in 1892 to form the General Electric Company. The Thomson Papers are a massive and nearly comprehensive collection documenting the wide range of Thomson's scientific and technical interestsm from his electrical experiments, inventions, and patents, to his interests in astronomy, geology, and medicine, as well as his role in the development of two major corporations involved in electrification, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company and General Electric Company. Roughly three quarters of the collection is dated between 1890 and 1920 when Thomson was associated with General Electric, and was active in professional groups such as the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), International Electrotechnical Commission. His research interests. The balance of the collection is comprised of eight boxes and five volumes relating to Thomson's patents; a series of notebooks kept at Central High School; 43 letterbooks, 1882-1936; diaries of trips to Europe; notebooks on genealogy; scrapbooks of cards, photographs, clippings, and other souvenirs; and 2 vols. of tributes on his eightieth birthday, etc.

This collection centers on Brown's geological investigations in various areas of Scotland and England concerning fossils, geological formations, deposits, etc. His activity in the Edinburgh Geological Society is documented in the letters and in newspaper clippings. Several of the letters contain diagrams, also geological maps (manuscript and printed) of Edinburgh and its environs, drawn by Charles Lapworth.

This microfilm edition of Rutherford's papers in Cambridge University Library provides an invaluable resource for the study of the progress o f radioactivity, atomic physics, and nuclear physics.

This collection contains drafts of letters and copies of enclosures from Richardson and letters and enclosures from approximately 3500 authors. Represented are almost all the Nobel Laureates in physics before 1950.

The first volume includes extracts from the journals of Conrad Weiser and Christian Frederick Post (1757), Charles Thomson's "An Enquiry into the causes of the alienation of the Delaware and Shawanese Indians from the British interest" (1759), and a printed version of Judge Bradford's "Statement of facts and observations respecting the penal laws" (1792). The second volume contains selected letters and documents in the Pennsylvania state records on Indian relations, including transcriptions of several treaties between the Province of Pennsylvania and the Delawares and other Indians (1755-1758); the French and Indian War; and Braddock's campaign. Some manuscripts are written by Deborah Norris Logan and Charles Thomson.

Materials removed from albums, of letters and autographs of various persons.

This is part of the large inventory for the Benjamin Franklin Papers (Mss B F85). For complete information concerning this collection, please view the Collection Description .

The first volume in the collection, "Particulars of an Indian treaty at Conestogoe between his excellency Sir William Keith, bart, governor of Pennsilvania and the deputies of the Five Nations [July 5-8, 1721]," is a manuscript copy of a printed work by Andrew Bradford, with a preface dated July 26. See Colonial Records, 3: 121. The volume regards a meeting between Sinnekaes, Onondagoes, Cayoogoes, Keith, and James Logan. Freeman Guide: 138 and 1769.

An extensive family collection, the Vaux Family Papers center around the lives of George Vaux V (1721-1803), George Vaux VII (1779-1836), and George Vaux VIII (1832-1915), their business partners, siblings, wives, and children, and encompasses the extended Vaux family of Warders, Sansoms, Heads, Graffs, Morrises, Cressons, and Mayberrys. The collection includes correspondence, financial accounts, receipts, business records, journals, diaries, photographs, and legal documents.

This item is a daily record of professional visits and prescriptions. Some of Shippen's patients were eminent Philadelphians and visitors to the city.

The Lusanna, a seventy-ton brigantine, was owned by Elisha Doane of Massachusetts, and sailed with his son-in-law Shearjashub Bourne as supercargo. She sailed from Massachusetts in 1775 at the onset of the American Revolution. On the return voyage from London in 1777 she was captured by the privateer McClary out of Portsmouth, NH. In the prize case that followed in the New Hampshire maritime court, Bourne and Doane unsuccessfully tried to defend their ship. Their appeal eventually made its way to the Continental Congress. The Lusanna Prize Case Records is a written transcript of the proceedings in Admiralty Court of the armed brigantine McClary vs. the brigantine Lusanna in the State of New Hampshire. The transcript contains the entire proceedings of the case including the libel, statements of the crew and passengers, invoices for items shipped aboard the Lusanna, bills of lading, copies of letters pertaining to the voyage and cargo, copy of the prize case against the Industry (another vessel owned by Doane captured by the British in 1775), testimony in support of the owners of the Lusanna as loyal to the United States, the decision of the court, and the appeal.

Though the Miscellaneous Manuscripts collection is composed of items that do not fall readily into any other existing collection, the two dominant intellectual areas represented in the collection are Early American History and History of Science.

This is part of the large inventory for the Benjamin Franklin Papers (Mss B F85). For complete information concerning this collection, please view the Collection Description . The materials listed here are not held at the APS.

Jane Aitken (1764-1832) is a significant historical figure for several reasons. One of the first American female printers, Jane Aitken was also a bookseller, bookbinder, businesswoman, and employer during the early nineteenth century, a time when the independence of women was actively discouraged. There is a dearth of personal information about Jane Aitken, an unfortunate fact that is reflected in her surviving papers. This small collection, 145 items, is representative of her severely compromised financial situation and her constant failed efforts to rectify the situation. Her correspondence consists primarily of appeals to John Vaughan, a member and librarian of the American Philosophical Society, for loans. Vaughan was evidently a reliable and sympathetic supporter.

This collection contains mostly entomological material, with much information on the description and identification of particular insects, entomological collections, and the study of entomology in Europe and the United States. In addition, there are materials on medicine and hospitals during the American Civil War, on the Corps of Topographical Engineers, the United States Army, on natural history in the United States, and on the LeConte's family. Some letters are written to President Rutherford B. Hayes and concern the Commissionership of Agriculture, for which LeConte was considered, but not appointed. Letters of John Eatton LeConte and Joseph LeConte are included.

An expert in stellar spectroscopy, Walter Sydney Adams (1876-1956, APS 1915) made important empirical contributions to the analysis of the physical conditions of stellar and planetary atmospheres, determining the distances to extragalactic objects, and understanding stellar evolution. Adams succeeded his mentor George Ellery Hale as director of the Mount Wilson Observatory, serving in that capacity from 1923 to 1946. The Adams Papers contains approximately 100 letters addressed to the astronomer Walter Sydney Adams, dating primarily from the period after his move to Mount Wilson Observatory in 1904. Much of the correspondence is relatively perfunctory, however a few letters include interesting scientific content, including Harlow Shapley discussing his photometric study of HV 3435 and interest in Alpha Circini, Arthur Compton's comments on Keener's photoelectric method, Svante Arrhenius on the possibilities of constructing a new observatory for the Swedish Academy of Sciences, and Arthur Eddington discussing the implications of the spectrum of the companion to Sirius. Among Adams' other correspondents are J. C. Kapteyn, James H. Jeans, Henry Norris Russell, Elihu Thomson, and Willem de Sitter.

Primary source materials for the history of quantum physics in the twentieth century, collected under the auspices of the APS and the American Physical Society, with a grant from the National Science Foundation. There are transcripts of the oral history interviews, as well as the working papers of the Committee. These include correspondence with famous figures in physics, with some memoirs, photographs, lectures, etc. On microfilm (see Mss. 530.1 Ar2 ) are manuscripts of Niels Henrick David Bohr and his scientific correspondence (62 reels from the Niels Bohr Archives, Universitets Institut for Teoretisk Fysik, Copenhagen). This collection is described and analyzed in Sources for the History of Quantum Physics: An Inventory and Report, by Thomas S. Kuhn, John L. Heilbron, Paul Forman, and Lini Allen (Philadelphia, 1967). The subject guide derived from the work has subsequently been digitized in its entirety and is available through the finding aid for Mss. 530.1 Ar2 .

This is part of the large inventory for the American Philosophical Society Archives. For complete information concerning this collection, please view the Collection Description .

A miscellaneous collection of letters, mainly of English scientists, written to various people. There are mostly one or two letters, except for those of John Peter Gassiot, William Huggins, Edwin R. Lankester, James Mackintosh, David Prain, and William Whewell.

This is part of the large inventory for the American Philosophical Society Archives. For complete information concerning this collection, please view the Collection Description .