Inventor Name
Bush, Vannevar
Repository
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave. SE
Room LM 101
James Madison Memorial Bldg
Washington, D.C. 20540-4680
202-707-5387
www.loc.gov
Physical Description
55,000 items; 174 containers; 69.6 linear feet
Summary
Physicist, engineer, government official, and science administrator. The collection relates primarily to Vannevar Bush's role as coordinator of the scientific community for defense efforts during and after World War II when he served as chairman of the National Defense Research Committee and director of its successor, the Office of Scientific Research and Development, where he supervised the Manhattan Project and other programs. The papers of Vannevar Bush (1890-1974) span the years 1901-1974, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period from 1932 to 1955. The collection consists of general correspondence, family papers, scientific papers, speeches and writings, subject files, and printed matter. It documents various phases of Bush's professional life as a physicist, engineer, and administrator of scientific research. Bush's strong advocacy of closer cooperation between scientists and the federal government during World War II led to his role as the principal mobilizer of American scientific and engineering talent in the wartime defense of the nation. His first national appointment was to the chairmanship of the National Defense Research Committee, an embryonic agency for weapons development which Bush proposed and which President Franklin D. Roosevelt inaugurated in 1940. One year later Bush assumed the directorship of a greatly expanded successor organization, the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), where he supervised the Manhattan Project and a number of other programs. The primary series of Bush's papers is the general correspondence, which includes not only letters sent and received but also a wide variety of materials ranging from personal manuscripts and memoranda to organizational reports and minutes. Organized alphabetically by person, organization, and in some cases by subject, the general correspondence and enclosures cover the gamut of Bush's professional and avocational interests from the late 1930s through 1955. Illuminated are his various inventive probings (Bush was knowledgeable in areas as far afield as optics, medicine, ornithology, and zoology) and his puzzling over questions as seemingly unrelated as the uses of penicillin, the “homing instinct” of birds, and the development of a “rapid selector” for the retrieval of microfilm and tape recordings. Evident as well are his connections to businessmen, academic associates, and government officials who shared his enthusiasms or had an interest in their practical resolution and marketability. There is also information regarding his career as a teacher and dean at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the 1930s. The main focus of the correspondence, however, is on Bush's responsibilities as coordinator of the scientific community during and after World War II. Featured are the complexities and challenges of running the OSRD, but prominent as well are the activities of other governmental and quasi-governmental bodies whose tasks supplemented or continued OSRD policies through World War II and into the Cold War era. Included among the agencies which are represented in some detail are the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the Joint Committee on New Weapons and Equipment of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Science Foundation, the National Research Council, and the National Academy of Sciences. Important, too, are files concerning Bush's numerous corporate and academic affiliations, including his service on the board of directors of American Telephone and Telegraph Company,1947-1962; as chairman of the board of Merck and Company, 1957-1962; as corporate chairman of MIT, 1959-1966; and as a trustee of Tufts College and Johns Hopkins University. Bush's scientific files are alphabetically arranged by subject and consist of various research and other data pertaining to such diverse topics as air engines, fly rods, immunological reactions, and solar pumps. In the files are diagrams, photographs, laboratory notes, bibliographies, patent reports, and correspondence. His family papers, which are relatively few, contain some correspondence with immediate family members but consist mainly of financial records and other miscellany. The speeches and writings in the collection provide a full and significant account of Bush's views on a host of subjects, with two particularly notable themes being the interrelationship of science and government and the technological assumptions behind America's postwar relations with the Soviet Union. Especially relevant to this latter theme are the papers relating to Bush's book, Modern Arms and Free Men (New York, 1949), and to numerous talks and articles delineating his views on international control of atomic energy, the garrison state, America's military and ideological confrontation with the Soviet Union, and the turbulent loyalty controversies of the McCarthy period. Important correspondents include scores of legislators, policymakers, executives, scientists, and military officials. Among them are presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Harry S. Truman; army leaders Henry Harley Arnold, Omar N. Bradley, Robert P. Patterson, and Carl Spaatz; and government experts Dean Acheson, James Forrestal, and David E. Lilienthal. Additional names of significance and frequency include Niels H. D. Bohr, Robert A. Choate, Karl T. Compton, James B. Conant, Bradley Dewey, Charles Dollard, W. W. Garth, Jr., Caryl P. Haskins, D. C. Josephs, James Rhyne Killian, Jr., Russell C. Leffingwell, F. Alexander Magoun, Don K. Price, Redfield Proctor, Palmer C. Putnam, A. Newton Richards, Elihu Root, Jr., Hartley Rowe, Oscar M. Ruebhausen, John T. Rule, Orville J. Schell, Jr., Leslie E. Simon, William H. Timbie, Tracy S. Voorhees, Warren Weaver, Bethuel M. Webster, Carroll L. Wilson, and Robert E. Wilson. Institutional materials and correspondence in addition to those already cited above include files pertaining to the Metals and Controls Corporation, the Brookings Institution, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the Franklin Institute, the United States Patent Office, and the Smithsonian Institution.
Finding Aid
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms998004