| HomeAbout UsOur CollectionsAccess and UseContactSearch |
| The Caltech Archives were formally established in 1968 to serve as the collective memory of the California Institute of Technology. Our mission is to preserve and make accessible the institutional records, personal papers, documents, artifacts and pictorial materials that tell the school's history. The Archives' unique research collections in the history of science and technology range from the time of Copernicus to today. They are available to the campus community for instructional and research purposes, as well as to qualified non-campus users by appointment.
|
In the News New acquisitions
|
Talk of the Archives Commencements past and present. Caltech's Commencement archive runs from 1920, the year the school became the California Institute of Technology, to the present.
In 1920 the Commencement speaker was Dr. George Ellery Hale, Director of the Mt. Wilson Observatory and Institute trustee, who spoke on "Scientific Research as the Foundation of Engineering Education and Industrial Development." Caltech awarded its very first PhD —to Roscoe Gilkey Dickinson in chemistry. The ceremony was held in front of Gates Laboratory (now Parsons-Gates Hall of Administration). The Institute awarded 31 bachelors and 3 masters degrees, in addition to the first doctorate. Photo ID 20.7-8 |
laboratory assistant and illustrator for 32 years. Her finely detailed, beautifully executed pen and ink drawings of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, appeared widely in publications by Morgan and his students. Much later they formed most of the illustrations of the famous Red Book, the definitive catalog of Drosophila mutations prior to the electronic FlyBase. Recently a substantial set of Wallace's original Drosophila drawings were returned to the Caltech Archives from England.
| Site Map