The bacteriologist and virologist Thomas Milton Rivers spent over thirty years at the Rockefeller Institute as a researcher in the Department of Bacteriology and from 1937-1955, as Director. Working on measles and pneumonia, Rivers discovered the parainfluenzae bacillus and cultivated vaccine virus for human use, and during the 1950s, he played an important role in coordinating research on poliomyelitis as head of the National Institute for Infantile Paralysis. During the Second World War, Rivers led the Naval Medical Research Unit in the South Pacific, rising to the rank of Rear Admiral. The Rivers Papers contains correspondence, laboratory notes, speeches, and photographs documenting Rivers' activities at the Rockefeller Institute, the development of polio vaccine, and Rivers' Navy experience in the Pacific during World War II.

A pioneer biochemist, Carl Neuberg (1877-1956) spent over thirty years of his productive career as a professor at the University of Berlin (1903-1937) and as Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes of Biochemistry and Experimental Therapy. His varied research interests resulted in important contributions to the understanding of fermentation processes, solubility and transport phenomena in cells, the chemistry of carbohydrates, sugars, enzymes, and amino acids, and photochemistry. Neuberg was forced out of his position after the Nazi rise to power, and taking refuge in the United States. For the last several years of his life, he worked at New York University. The Neuberg collection consists of correspondence, lab notebooks, documents, photographs, and reprints, nearly all dating from after Neuberg's departure from Germany in 1940. The correspondence documents Neuberg's late-career work and the contacts he developed with American chemical manufacturers and industries involved in fermentation, as well as the burgeoning post-war relationship between scientific research and the federal dollar. Files for the American Cancer Society, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, and the U.S. Public Health Service in particular contain useful information for study of the politics and mechanics of government grants.

The physicist W.F.G. Swann was a pioneer in high energy physics and the study of cosmic rays. Climbing the academic ranks from the University of Sheffield to the Universities of Minnesota, Chicago, and Yale, Swann was selected as the first director of the Bartol Research Foundation of the Franklin Institute in 1927, and remained there until his retirement in 1959. An able administrator and excellent mentor, he was best known for his popular work on the new physics, The Architecture of the Universe (1934) and for his research on cosmic rays. Avocationally, he was an accomplished cellist and in addition to performing, he helped organize and support the Swarthmore Symphony Orchestra and other local groups. He died at his home in Swarthmore in 1962. The Swann Papers consist of 41 linear feet of correspondence, class notes, lectures, and photographs documenting Swann's career at the Bartol Research Foundation from 1927 until the end of his life. The collection is wide ranging, touching on atmospheric electricity, particle acceleration, atomic bomb defense, atomic energy, electrets, electrodynamics, magnetism, music, quantum theory, radiation, relativity and Einstein, science and civilization, stratospheric flights (by balloon and airplane), thermodynamics, psychic science, and wave mechanics. It is particularly rich for study of the history of cosmic ray research and the Bartol Institute, and for study of the popularization of modern physical sciences.