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Becoming Caltech Presentations
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Becoming Caltech, 1910–1930: Presentations from the Archives
A century ago, a small institution called Throop Polytechnic Institute dramatically reinvented itself, transforming from a manual arts academy to an engineering school, then expanding into a research institute. In 1920, it became the California Institute of Technology. In summer 2020, Caltech archivists gave a series of livestreamed presentations on the science, engineering, architecture, and community life of early Caltech. You can find below links to video of these presentations, and a bibliography of further reading.
Session 1, Commencement Edition. Thursday, June 11, 5:00–6:15
Watch on YouTube
Session 2, Thursday, June 25, 5:00–6:00
Watch on YouTube
Session 3, Thursday, July 9, 5:00–6:00
Watch on YouTube
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E. T. Bell and Mathematics Between the Wars, by special guest Judith R. Goodstein, University Archivist, Emeritus
Session 4, Thursday, July 23, 5:00–6:00
Watch on YouTube
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The Life and Times of Mathematician Olga Taussky-Todd, by special guest Judith R. Goodstein, University Archivist, Emeritus
Session 5, Thursday, August 6, 5:00–6:00
Watch on YouTube
Session 6, Thursday, August 20, 5:00–6:00
Watch on YouTube
Further Reading
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Garland E. Allen, Thomas Hunt Morgan: The Man and His Science (1978).
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Phillip Balch, “Allan Christopher Balch: Pioneer in the Electric Industry,” Balchipedia: The Encyclopedia of Baltch History, 2017.
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Manton M. Barnes, “Hail CIT” and “In This Issue,” Engineering and Science, November 1948.
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The Big T yearbook.
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Charles L. Burdick, “The Genesis and Beginning of X-Ray Crystallography at Caltech,” in Fifty Years of X-Ray Diffraction (1962).
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Imra W. Buwalda, “The Roots of the California Institute of Technology III,” Engineering and Science, December 1966.
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California Tech student newspaper.
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Central Docents, “Lee Lawrie,” Los Angeles Public Library Blog, January 7, 2015.
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Peter Sachs Collopy and Jennifer Torres-Siders, “‘Throops Superlative Opportunity’: The Story of the Gates Laboratory of Chemistry” (2017).
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Peter Sachs Collopy and Jennifer Torres-Siders, “Building a Chemistry Division” (2017).
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Engineering and Science magazine.
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Horace N. Gilbert, interview by Mary Terrall, 1978, Caltech Archives Oral History Project.
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Judith R. Goodstein, Millikan’s School: A History of the California Institute of Technology (1991).
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Judith R. Goodstein, “Olga Taussky-Todd,” Notices of the American Mathematical Society 67, no. 3 (2020).
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Judith R. Goodstein and Donald Babbitt, “E. T. Bell and Mathematics at Caltech Between the Wars,” Notices of the American Mathematical Society 60, no. 6 (2013).
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Judith R. Goodstein and Alice Stone, Caltech’s Throop Hall (1981).
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Gregory Paul Harm, Lee Lawrie’s Prairie Deco: History in Stone at the Nebraska State Capitol (2011).
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Gregory P. Harm, LeeLawrie.com.
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Abraham Hoffman, “Albert Einstein at Caltech,” California History 76, no. 4 (1997).
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Charles H. Holbrow, “The Giant Cancer Tube and the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory,” Physics Today 34, no. 7 (1981).
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L. Winchester Jones, interview by Mary Terrall, 1978, Caltech Archives Oral History Project.
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Robert Kargon, “Birth Cries of the Elements: Theory and Experiment along Millikan’s Route to Cosmic Rays,” in The Analytic Spirit: Essays in the History of Science in Honor of Henry Guerlac (1981).
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Lily E. Kay, The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech: The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rise of the New Biology (1993).
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Katherine Keenan, “Lilian Vaughan Morgan (1870–1952): Her Life and Work,” American Zoologist 23 (1983).
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Robert E. Kohler, Lords of the Fly: Drosophila Genetics and the Experimental Life (1994).
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Mayo Hayes O'Donnell Library, “Janet Jacks.”
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Elliot Meyerowitz, “History of the Division of Biology and Biological Engineering” (2020).
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National Academy of Science, The National Academy of Science Building: A Home for Science in America (2013).
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J. Alex Navarro and Howard Markel, editors, The American Influenza Epidemic of 1918–1919: A Digital Encyclopedia (2016).
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Linus Pauling, “Early Work on X-Ray Diffraction in the California Institute of Technology,” in Fifty Years of X-Ray Diffraction (1962).
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Stefanos Polyzoides, “Bertram Goodhue and the Architecture of Caltech, 1915 to 1939,” Classicist no. 15 (2018).
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Constance Reid, The Search for E. T. Bell, Also Known as John Taine (1993).
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Charles Richter, interview by Ann Scheid, 1978, Caltech Archives Oral History Project.
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John D. Roberts, interview by Rachel Prud’homme, 1985, Caltech Archives Oral History Project.
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Kevin Starr, Material Dreams: Southern California Through the 1920s (1990).
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Robert Winter and David Gebhard, An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles (2003).
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Romy Wyllie, Caltech’s Architectural Heritage: From Spanish Tile to Modern Stone (2000).