Collections by Subject: Science and Technology
A Selected List of Holdings in the Archives and Manuscripts Department, University of Maryland Libraries
For more information about how to access materials in this guide, please visit the Maryland Room web page or fill out an information request.
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Records of the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station,
1852-1983.
32.25 linear feet.
Location: University Archives
The Agricultural Experiment Station was established in 1888 to use the resources of science to improve the practice of agriculture. Areas of concern included soil fertility, tobacco and strawberry breeding, and control of hog cholera and San Jose scale. During the 1960s an interest in food technology was added. Station records include pamphlets and brochures covering a wide range of scientific areas, in particular agronomy, animal husbandry, botany, entomology, and veterinary science.
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Records of the College of Agriculture,
1916-1973.
20.75 linear feet.
Location: University Archives
The teaching of agriculture at the University of Maryland began with the opening of the Maryland Agricultural College in 1859 and remains a focus of the present-day university. The records of the College of Agriculture consist of administrative files, ledgers, and photographs. They document the college's day-to-day operations; linkages with national and regional professional associations; research projects; and faculty and departmental concerns. The bulk of the files date from 1951 to 1969 during the tenure of Gordon M. Cairns as dean of the college.
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Papers of John Henry Alexander,
1824-1857.
0.75 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
John Alexander was a surveyor and chief engineer of Maryland. As the first geologist of Maryland, he mapped coal deposits in the state. His papers consist of correspondence and reports on legislation regarding the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, solar eclipses, and geological surveys.
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William L. Amoss papers,
1884-1936.
14.00 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
William Amoss was the director of the Department of Farmers Institutes of the Maryland Agricultural College. He conducted the first agriculture short course lectures on wheels in 1906. Amoss was also responsible for promoting practical knowledge in farming and horticulture. His papers include correspondence dealing with farm institutes, reports on county fairs, and publications dealing with various aspects of agriculture.
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Papers of Maurice Annenberg,
1935-1980.
10.50 linear feet.
Location: Literary Manuscripts
Maurice Annenberg started the Maran Printing Company in Baltimore, Maryland. He published "Type Talk", a newsletter which was widely distributed to members of the printing and advertising field. He also authored Type Foundries of America. His papers include collections of type faces, fonts with text, and catalogs and specimen books relating to type faces and type foundries. Also included are articles and speeches on printing and type foundries.
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Papers of Ronald Bamford,
1926-1967.
0.50 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Ronald Bamford joined the University of Maryland faculty in 1931 as an assistant professor of botany. He later became a full professor and chaired the Department of Botany from 1944 to 1963. Dr. Bamford also served the university as dean of the graduate school for sixteen years, from 1950 to 1966. One of his specialties was research on violets, and the majority of the scientific writings among his papers document this aspect of his career.
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Papers of Theodore Bissell,
1910-1982.
0.50 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Theodore Bissell was a 1920 graduate of the Maryland State College of Agriculture, now the University of Maryland, who specialized in the taxonomy of hickory aphids and insect control. The bulk of Mr. Bissell's papers focuses on the history of the University of Maryland, but his files do include correspondence on aphids and programs from horticultural conferences and meetings.
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Records of the Department of Botany,
1898-1980.
14.00 linear feet.
Location: University Archives
Classes in botany were among the first offerings of the Maryland Agricultural College when it opened its doors to students in the fall of 1859. Research and teaching in this discipline have expanded throughout the history of the University of Maryland to include general botany and morphology; plant physiology; plant pathology; cytology; cytogenetics and taxonomy; ecology; mycology; marine botany; nematology; virology; and phycology. The records of the Department of Botany, renamed the Department of Plant Biology in 1995, consist of correspondence, research notebooks, publications, administrative subject files, and photographs. Among the topics covered are daily departmental operations, faculty research projects, and greenhouse facilities.
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Brooke Family papers,
1750-1980.
13.00 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
The Brookes were a prominent landowning family in Maryland. The Brooke family and their extended family network of the Farquhar, Hallowell, Thomas, Hopkins, and Snowden families were active in the Quaker community near Sandy Spring, Montgomery County, Maryland. The papers include women's diaries and day books across several generations of the Brooke family, and the family's correspondence covers plantation and family life from the early nineteenth- to mid-twentieth centuries. Topics include farming, social gatherings, Quaker religion, friendship, courtship, marriages, motherhood, finances, health concerns, holidays, and travel.
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Papers of David Edward Brown,
1903-1972.
8.00 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
David Brown was a special field agent for the U. S. Department of Agriculture. He was mainly involved in work dealing with tobacco breeding and culture and developed the Maryland Mammoth variety of tobacco. His papers include diaries dealing with daily activities in tobacco culture and other field crops, such as wheat and clover, and notebooks covering crop tests, tobacco statistics, and nutrition tests.
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Paul Dennis Brown Collection,
1941-1988.
4.50 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
P. D. Brown was an agriculture agent for Charles County, Maryland. He also served as a tobacco specialist for the University of Maryland Extension Service. His papers include pamphlets on tobacco culture, articles on the American forest, and a landscape plan for the beautification of La Plata, Maryland.
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Papers of Stephen G. Brush,
1888-2006.
10.50 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Stephen G. Brush (1935-) is a physicist and historian of science who worked at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in Livermore, California, before coming to the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1968. At the University of Maryland, he held the position of associate professor in the History Department as well as the Institute for Fluid Dynamics and Applied Mathematics (IFDAM), later the Institute for Physical Science and Technology (IPST), later becoming full professor, and finally Distinguished University Professor of the History of Science. Dr. Brush's papers document his life and career and include research and lecture notes, and drafts of publications, as well as extensive correspondence. The files chronicle Brush's work in the history of physics, especially on the origin of the solar system and moon, statistical mechanics, and the kinetic theory of heat.
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Papers of Johannes Martinus Burgers,
1912-1980.
48.00 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Burgers was a research professor at the Institute for Fluid Dynamics and Applied Mathematics, now the Institute of Physical Science and Technology, at the University of Maryland. He is recognized for his studies on gas dynamics, plasma physics and shock waves. His papers include research and lecture notes on various aspects of gas dynamics. Also included are notes on DNA, meteorology, crystallography, and an article on the philosophy of biology. Of special interest are letters from scientists Oppenheimer and Rankin.
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Cronin, L. Eugene,
1925-2000.
21.00 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Dr. Lewis Eugene Cronin (1917-1998) was a zoologist and estuarine researcher who specialized in the Chesapeake Bay. Dr. Cronin received his M.S. and Ph. D. degrees from the University of Maryland, writing a dissertation on the biology of the blue crab. Dr. Cronin served as a professor at the University of Delaware from 1950-1955 and as a Research Professor and Director, Natural Resources Institute at the University of Maryland. From 1977 to 1984 Dr. Cronin served as Director of the Chesapeake Research Consortium. In addition to his duties with Chesapeake Bay research organizations Dr. Cronin worked for the Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research and served as a consultant for various government agencies in and around both Washington, D.C. and New Orleans, Louisiana. Dr. Cronin was active with the Sierra Club of Maryland and other local environmental organizations. Dr. Cronin maintained active correspondence with environmental and estuarine research groups throughout the United States, as well as groups in Canada and Europe. This collection includes materials related to Dr. Cronin's M.S. and Ph. D. theses, lecture notes, correspondence, consulting work, academic and popular publications, committee activities, and travel. Materials are primarily in English, with a small number related to a June, 1989 trip to Portugal in Portoguese. Multimedia items include projection slides, dry-mount microscope slides, photographs, maps and charts, one VHS tape (runtime 5.00 minutes) and one Hi-8 video tape (runtime unknown).
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Records of the Department of Entomology,
1893-1986.
29 linear feet.
Location: University Archives
The Department of Entomology was established at the University of Maryland in 1859. For the first thirty years the department was primarily concerned with teaching. By the 1890s the department had entered the field of research, concentrating its efforts on eradication of insects introduced into the United States and studying the use of DDT and other pesticides. Departmental records include experiments and projects on various insect pests and diseases such as the European Corn Borer, the Japanese Beetle and Dutch Elm Disease.
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Papers of Geary Eppley,
1913-1995.
16.25 linear feet and 46 photographs.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Geary Eppley was an assistant professor of agriculture at the University of Maryland who specialized in animal husbandry. He also served as Dean of Men and Director of Athletics. Among his papers are reports concerning animals, particularly on the subjects of dairy husbandry and hay and pasture grasses.
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Archives of Galaxy, Inc.,
1949-1984.
23.00 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
The Galaxy Co., Inc., was founded in 1949 by Robert Ware Straus. The Galaxy Company was a management consulting firm which, by the late 1950s, specialized in technical and industrial consulting, particularly for the U. S. Department of Energy. The firm was also active in marketing its own chemical processes and plant designs. Company records include operating manuals and correspondence relating to the production of vinyl and acrylic emulsions used in paint and leather industries. Also included in the papers are technical reports on hydroquinone, plastics technology, fiberglass, and oil shale production.
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Papers of Robert Lamar Green,
1959-1976.
4.00 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Dr. Green joined the University of Maryland faculty as professor and chair of the Department of Agricultural Engineering in the late 1950s. He also served as the first coordinator of the university's Water Resources Research Center and was a member of several major committees and commissions dealing with shore erosion and water resource management. Dr. Green's papers focus primarily on his involvement with the Committee to Study Shore Erosion, the Water Resources Commission, and the Water Resources Study Committee.
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Records of the Department of Horticulture,
1888-1971.
25.25 linear feet.
Location: University Archives
Classes in Horticulture were first offered at the University of Maryland in 1859. The department traditionally emphasized pomology and olericulture. By the 1970s the focus of the department expanded to include recreational and landscape horticulture. The department's files include technical reports on various horticultural topics, particularly vegetables and fruits.
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Papers of Morley A. Jull,
1921-1959.
4.00 linear feet and 418 items.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Morley A. Jull was the Head of the Poultry Science Department at the University of Maryland from 1936 until his retirement in 1956. Poultry breeding, particularly as it pertains to chickens, is the subject covered in most depth in the collection, although there are also materials concerning the poultry industry and poultry education.
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Papers of Frank J. Kerr,
1945-2000.
39.50 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Frank Kerr (1918-2000) was a University of Maryland Professor Emeritus in the Department of Astronomy. He was among the first radio astronomers in the years following World War II and the first ot systematically study the echo of radio waves bounced off of the moon. He came to the University of Maryland as a researcher in 1966, and stayed on to become the Directory of the Astronomy Program in the mid-1970s and was Provost of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences and Engineering Division from 1978-1985. The papers consist of working notes, correspondence, research, diagrams, technical reports, and reprints collected by Dr. Kerr both as a scientist, and as a University of Maryland faculty member. This collection is unprocessed.
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Papers of Helmut E. Landsberg,
1906-1985.
20.25 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Helmut Landsberg, the father of modern climatology, was a director of the U. S. Weather Bureau Office of Climatology. A lecturer at the University of Maryland Institute of Fluid Dynamics, he founded the Department Of Meteorology. He was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1985. Landsberg's papers include a large number of his published articles relating to meteorology and climate as well as correspondence dealing with climate, meteorology, weather forecasting, and oceanography.
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Archives of the Livestock Sanitary Board,
1888-1934.
1.0 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
The Livestock Sanitary Board was organized in 1889 to monitor animal disease control. In 1916 this organization became the State Board of Agriculture. The files of the board include reports dealing with diseases of animals such as anthrax, hog cholera, and hoof and mouth.
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Papers of Romeo Mansueti,
1922-1963.
21.25 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Romeo Mansueti was the senior fishery biologist at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory and a research professor at the University of Maryland. His interests included reptiles and amphibians, but he was best known for his research on commercial fish of the Chesapeake Bay. Mansueti's papers include pamphlets, notes, and manuscripts on fish research, particularly the early development of commercial fish in the Bay. Also found in his papers is a history of the Chesapeake Biological Lab and lecture notes on vertebrate ecology.
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Raymond E. Miller papers,
1950-2004.
64.50 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Working papers of Dr. Raymond E. Miller (b. 1928), Professor Emeritus in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland. Dr. Miller's papers document his entire career, including his work at IBM in the 1950s through the 1980s; his work as director and a professor at the School of Information and Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the 1980s, and his work as a professor at the University of Maryland. Also included are papers documenting Dr. Miller's various consulting jobs, his work as director of the Center of Excellence in Space Data and Information Sciences at the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and his work in various professional organizations. Included in the collection are course syllabi, committee papers, publications, speeches, and documentation surrounding Dr. Miller's early work on Switching Theory.
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Papers of Elliott Montroll,
1936-1982.
9.00 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Elliott Montroll was a research professor at the University of Maryland Institute of Fluid Dynamics and Applied Mathematics from 1951 to 1960. He also held many government positions and was the founding editor of the Journal of Mathematical Physics. His papers include lecture notes and research materials for the publication of articles on various aspects of physics and chemistry.
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W. Joseph Moyer papers,
1857-1986.
82.75 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Joseph Moyer was a climatologist for the state of Maryland and a faculty member at the University of Maryland. His papers include nineteenth and twentieth century climatological data from weather stations around Maryland. The collection is unprocessed.
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Archives of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO),
1949-1990.
58.00 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
The National Information Standards Organization (NISO), previously known as the Z39 Committee, maintains technical standards relating to the library, information, and publishing fields. Major topics covered in the standards include romanization of alphabets; paper composition; library/publishing statistics; and establishment of consistent data elements to assist in the automation of bibliographic records. The NISO archives consist of correspondence; publications; minutes; committee reports and files on standards development at the national and international levels; budgets; bylaws; and membership lists. The records contain committee files for most of the standards published or revised by Z39/NISO since 1950.
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Papers of John Bitting Smith Norton,
1895-1959.
0.50 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
J. B. S. Norton was a state plant pathologist for Maryland and in this capacity was jointly responsible for the inspections of nurseries and orchards around the state with particular attention to insect pests. He was also a professor of botany and plant pathology at the Maryland Agriculture College. His papers include reports as state pathologist (1901-1904) and reprints of his articles covering such topics as botany, plant pathology, horticulture, and entomology.
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Papers of Harry J. Patterson,
1886-1945.
9 lin. in..
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Harry J. Patterson was a chemist and vice director of the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station. He also served as president of the Maryland Agricultural College. His important contributions include the development of controls for San Jose scale and hog cholera. He also fostered progress in the fields of tobacco and strawberry breeding and dairy nutrition. His papers include correspondence promoting agriculture and notebooks containing tests and experiments conducted at the Agricultural Experiment Station.
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Papers of James Reveal,
1965-2000.
18.50 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
James Reveal is a professor of botany at the University of Maryland. His papers consist primarily of a draft manuscript for "Botanical Explorations and Discoveries in Colonial Maryland" as well as research materials used in the preparation of this publication. The collection is unprocessed.
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Papers of Ben Shneiderman,
1968-2004.
105 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Ben Shneiderman is a professor in the computer science department at the University of Maryland, College Park. During his career at the University (1976- ), he has founded the Human-Computer Interaction Lab (1982), conducted research, taught courses, and contributed to the development of human-computer interaction. The papers largely chronicle Shneiderman's involvement in the discipline of human-computer interaction. Included in the collection are final versions and drafts of articles, conference materials, consulting and grant records, personal correspondence, course materials, and newspaper clippings.
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Papers of Mary S. Shorb,
1910-1971.
16.75 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Mary Shorb was a research professor at the University of Maryland from 1949 to 1972 in poultry husbandry. Dr. Shorb was responsible for the discovery of a microbe which led to the commercial development of B12. Her papers include experiments on B12 and folic acid, correspondence on protozoa experiments, and reports and laboratory notebooks on chick growth.
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Records of the State Board of Agriculture,
1916-1958 (31 items).
0.50 linear feet.
Location: University Archives
The board was founded in 1916 to enforce laws relating to agriculture. Among the many topics with which the board was concerned were the elimination of animal and plant disease and control of the mosquito population. The board was abolished in 1972 and the Maryland Department of Agriculture assumed its responsibilities. Records of the board include pamphlets concerned with eliminating contagious animal diseases, such as tuberculosis in livestock, and minutes discussing such issues as the sanitary treatment of milk.
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Papers of Thomas Baddeley Symons,
c.1910-1969.
9.50 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Thomas B. Symons, a graduate of the Maryland Agricultural College, was the director of the Maryland Cooperative Extension Service from 1914 to 1950 and dean of the University of Maryland College of Agriculture from 1937 to 1950, when he retired from the university. He returned to his alma mater four years later for a nine-month term as acting president. Dr. Symons' original area of specialization was entomology, but his interests later expanded to include soil conservation and land use. Throughout his career, Dr. Symons was active in a number of agricultural organizations, and their activities and concerns are documented in his papers as well.
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Papers of John S. Toll,
1943-1991.
27.00 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
John S. Toll earned a B.A. at Yale in 1944 and had completed an M.A. and Ph.D. in physics at Princeton by 1952. During his graduate studies, he worked as a theoretical physicist at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico. From 1953 to 1965, Toll headed the University of Maryland Physics Department. He then moved to the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he served as president until returning to the University of Maryland in 1978. Toll resigned in 1989 and later served as president of Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, from 1995 to 2004. His papers consist of materials documenting his career both as a physicist and as an administrator.
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Papers of Joseph Weber,
1930-2000.
114.00 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Joseph Weber (1919-2000) was a University of Maryland physicist credited in the 1960s with conducting early research into detecting gravity waves. Dr. Weber's experiments began in 1958 and he first reported success in 1969, believing he had proved the waves' existence. Other scientists who duplicated Weber's experiments failed to find the same results, but nonetheless, they changed the way that scientists perceived gravity waves. The papers consist of working notes, correspondence, research, diagrams, technical reports and other documents collected by Dr. Weber both as a scientist, and as a University of Maryland faculty member. This collection is unprocessed.
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Papers of Charles Edward White,
1925-1973.
9.50 linear feet.
Location: Historical Manuscripts
Charles White, a professor of chemistry, served as the head of the Chemistry Department at the University of Maryland in 1960; he also wrote a laboratory manual for his students. His papers include course materials, student papers on the history of chemistry, and various articles White wrote on chemistry. Included in his correspondence is a letter from Robert S. Mulliken, the 1966 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry.
Maryland Manuscripts
For more information, visit Historical Manuscripts
The Maryland Manuscripts collection consists of a variety of materials such as letters, lists, invoices, notes, and account books. A number of these items deal with the field of medicine, such as the account book of John G. Hersey describing cures for various diseases and complaints and the letter of Silvestre Rebello to Dr. Joshua Cohen discussing the use of Colonia Water as a cure for leprosy. Other subjects covered include plant taxonomy and veterinary medicine.
Photographs
Among the departmental photographic holdings are images which depict various fields of science. The photographs relate to plant and animal diseases, medicine, poultry culture, and biology, including an especially large collection of images of snakes, amphibians, and fish from the papers of Romeo Mansueti. Also included are photographs of insects, the effects of fertilizer applications on plants, and climatology instruments.
Memorabilia
Two items of memorabilia pertain to the subject of science. The first (item #31) is a section of wood from an original Maryland iron wood tree dated 1636 which was donated by G. W. Fogg. The second (item #96) is a balance with two brass pans and four brass weights which belonged to Charles E. White, professor of chemistry at the University of Maryland.