Becoming Caltech Presentations

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. Join us on Zoom for a series of presentations by Caltech archivists on the science, engineering, architecture, and community life of early Caltech.

To participate, please register for the sessions you would like to attend using the links below. You can also find below links to video of presentations already given, and a bibliography of further reading.

Session 1, Commencement Edition. Thursday, June 11, 5:00–6:15
Watch on YouTube

• “The Greater Throop”: Planning and Building a New Campus

• Influenza Comes to Throop

• The Rise of Seismology

• Commencement and “Hail CIT”

Session 2, Thursday, June 25, 5:00–6:00
Watch on YouTube

• Chemistry Comes to Caltech

• Women at Early Caltech

• Paleontology and the Road Not Taken

Session 3, Thursday, July 9, 5:00–6:00
Watch on YouTube

• Caltech’s Early Architects

• E. T. Bell and Mathematics Between the Wars, by special guest Judith R. Goodstein, University Archivist, Emeritus

• Student Life and the Original Big T, Carved into a Mountain

Session 4, Thursday, July 23, 5:00–6:00
Watch on YouTube

• From High Volts to High Energy Physics

• The Life and Times of Mathematician Olga Taussky-Todd, by special guest Judith R. Goodstein, University Archivist, Emeritus

• Clubs and Sports

Session 5, Thursday, August 6, 5:00–6:00
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• Humanities before HSS

• Architectural Elements Saved

• Biology Returns to Caltech 

Session 6, Thursday, August 20, 5:00–6:00
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• Caltech Takes to the Air: The Fly Boys and the Science Guys

• The Cosmopolitan Club and Students of Color

• Origins of the Athenaeum

Further Reading

• Manton M. Barnes, “Hail CIT” and “In This Issue,” Engineering and Science, November 1948.

• The Big T yearbook.

• Bulletin of the California Institute of Technology.

• Charles L. Burdick, “The Genesis and Beginning of X-Ray Crystallography at Caltech,” in Fifty Years of X-Ray Diffraction (1962).

• Imra W. Buwalda, “The Roots of the California Institute of Technology III,” Engineering and Science, December 1966.

• Peter Sachs Collopy and Jennifer Torres-Siders, “‘Throops Superlative Opportunity’: The Story of the Gates Laboratory of Chemistry” (2017).

• Peter Sachs Collopy and Jennifer Torres-Siders, “Building a Chemistry Division” (2017).

• Judith R. Goodstein, Millikan’s School: A History of the California Institute of Technology (1991).

• Judith R. Goodstein, “Olga Taussky-Todd,” Notices of the American Mathematical Society 67, no. 3 (2020).

• 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).

• Judith R. Goodstein and Alice Stone, Caltech’s Throop Hall (1981).

• Charles H. Holbrow, “The Giant Cancer Tube and the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory,” Physics Today 34, no. 7 (1981).

• 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).

• J. Alex Navarro and Howard Markel, editors, The American Influenza Epidemic of 1918–1919: A Digital Encyclopedia (2016).

• Linus Pauling, “Early Work on X-Ray Diffraction in the California Institute of Technology,” in Fifty Years of X-Ray Diffraction (1962).

• Stefanos Polyzoides, “Bertram Goodhue and the Architecture of Caltech, 1915 to 1939,” Classicist no. 15 (2018).

• Constance Reid, The Search for E. T. Bell, Also Known as John Taine (1993).

• Charles Richter, interview by Ann Scheid, 1978, Caltech Archives Oral History Project.

• John D. Roberts, interview by Rachel Prud’homme, 1985, Caltech Archives Oral History Project.

• Throop College Bulletin.

• Romy Wyllie, Caltech’s Architectural Heritage: From Spanish Tile to Modern Stone (2000).