This is part of the large inventory for the American Philosophical Society Archives. For complete information concerning this collection, please view the Collection Description .

Val Logsdon Fitch, (1923-2015)was born on March 10, 1923, in Merriman, Nebraska, in the remote Sandhills region in the north of the state. During WWII, he was drafted and sent to Los Alamos, N.M., to work as a technician on the Manhattan Project. While there, he helped design the detonator for the atomic bomb that was tested at Alamogordo and later dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. He shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physics with James Cronin for work that revealed a surprising imbalance in the laws of nature and helped explain why the collision of matter and antimatter has not destroyed everything in the universe. Their discovery of CP (charge parity invariance) violation was the result of experiments that included four objectives: to test the anomalous results of Adair, et al, to study the regeneration phenomena under a variety of conditions in different materials, to set new limits on the decay of the long-lived neutral K to two pions, and to check for the presence of neutral currents in strangeness changing decays. The Val Logsdon Fitch Papers include his research of K mesons, the innovation of the velocity-selecting Cherenkov counter that separated K+ from protons and pions in the beam, neutral kaons, CP violation in proton-antiproton interactions, the 'gap' method invented by Fitch to take measurements of KL - KS mass difference, a search for short-distance gravitational forces and finally, strange dibaryons. Dr. Fitch used particle accelerators to perform his experiments including the Bevatron, the Cosmotron, the accelerator at the Fermilab and the superconducting super collider at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland. The collection is divided into XV Series.

Frank Siebert (1913-1998) is one of the key contributors to the field of Algonquian linguistics. While he did not pursue a degree in linguistics or anthropology, he independently acquired the skills and knowledge of a professional scholar. His work on Penobscot is some of the best and most comprehensive in existence. The Siebert Papers document the interest and work of Frank Siebert in the linguistics of the Algonquian family of languages, particularly Penobscot. The collection includes correspondence, research notes, drafts and published manuscripts by Siebert, as well as secondary sources consulted by Siebert. To a lesser extent, it contains material that documents Siebert's personal life, his interest in book collecting and his career as a physician.

Baruch S. Blumberg was a biomedical researcher at the Fox Chase Cancer Center, in Philadelphia, PA, during the second half of the 20th century. His research into Australia Antigen and the Hepatitis B Virus led to a vaccine for the virus and a share of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Dr. Blumberg also served as chief of the Geographic Medicine and Genetics Section at the NIH (1957-1964), Master of Balliol College (1989-1994), the first Director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (1999-2002), and President of the American Philosophical Society (2005-2011).

This is part of the large inventory for the Benjamin Franklin Papers (Mss B F85). For complete information concerning this collection, please view the Collection Description .

These papers relate principally to Smyth's career in New Jersey before the American Revolution, and includes addresses to grand juries and their reports, and a copy of a petition to the Earl of Carlisle and its response (1778).

From the Sugar Act of 1764 through the Tea Act of 1773, the British Parliament imposed a variety of taxes upon their American colonies in an effort to raise revenue to offset the enormous debts incurred during the Seven Years' (French and Indian) War. Far more efficiently than raising revenue, these duties raised the indignation of the colonits, contributing more than their share to the alienation that fueled the independence movement The two volumes that comprise the Pennsylvania Stamp Act and Non-Importation Resolutions Collection contain 34 manuscript and printed items relating to the political crisis over taxation on goods imported into the American colonies between 1765 and 1773, with a focus on Philadelphia. The first volume is concerned exclusively with agitation over the Stamp Act of 1765 and its repeal, while the second volume relates more specifically to the Non-Importation agreements of the 1760s, the Townshend Duties, and the Tea Act of 1773. Among these are letters of Governor John Penn, correspondence between the Sons of Liberty at Philadelphia and those of New York, 1766, an address of the committee of Boston merchants to a committee of Philadelphia merchants, 11 August 1768. Among the more dramatic letters are those from John Hughes, the would-be Stamp Officer for Pennsylvania who resigned bis commission in the face of public protest, and a seies of threatening letters addressed to James and Drinker, consignees for the sale of tea in Pennsylvania in 1773.

These field diaries of this collecting trips to the American West provide detailed background information on the geology and precise position in which he uncovered fossils, as well as description of fossils, and Greek names he assigned to them. He sketched geological formations, fossils he discovered, and his conceptions of the way the animal might have appeared in life. One journal covers his trip to Paris in 1892.

4 reels. Correspondence of the aid-de-camp to Washington and president of Revolutionary Pennsylvania. Originals are in the New-York Historical Society.

1 reel. Correspondence relating to General John Burgoyne's failed expedition in northern New York, 1778. Originals are in The National Archives (Britain).

1 reel.Orderly Book of the 17th [British] Regiment of Foot kept at Staten Island and headquarters, New York, 1778-1779. Original is in Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

1 reel. Letter book, Oct. 23, 1778-Oct. 29, 1779. Original is in the New York Public Library.

Book of detailed watercolor and ink drawings of the geological strata, probably New York state, and of the fossil remains of mollusks found in the formations.

These contain a few notes and memoranda by Van Vleck, but the bulk of the collection is letters to and from him. Correspondents include Raymond T. Birge, Gerhard H. Dieke, Paul A. M. Dirac, Edwin C. Kemble, and Robert S. Mulliken.

Empire mahogany upholstered reclining chair of Roman curule form with rounded X-form profile of opposing scrolls which flair backward slightly along tall back. Arms roll downward into comma-shaped open scrolls which contrast with scroll of seat. X-shaped, curved legs are of square section and end in casters. Medallion is separate from chair, but rests on top. (Murphy D. Smith, "Due Reverence," 1992).

Fenton compiled this reel from several collections for his research on American Indians. From the George Chalmers Collection (1750-1775) are correspondence, intelligence reports, and records of treaties concerning the Indians of the Ohio Valley. The writers include Thomas Cresap, Thomas Hutchins, and Sir William Johnson. There are also papers from the Philip John Schuyler papers (1710-1797) and one item from the Withrop, Wait, and Leverett Memorial (1709).

Papers of jurist Samuel Bayard (1767-1840), including a diary from his time in London as American Claims Agent; correspondence with William Bradford (1755-1795), second attorney general of the United States; and a 1778 letter from William Alexander, Lord Stirling, to Governor William Livingston of New Jersey that discusses troop deployment in that state.

A collection of letters (family and professional), notebooks, diaries, lectures, articles, and photographs, of Smith, a noted American geographer who influenced the teaching of geography after 1920 through his many elementary texts. There is much material relating to these writings. His contributions to the rise of human geography and the related areas of conservation and ecology, are documented. His study in Europe under Friedrich Ratzel, at Leipzig in 1901-1912, is touched on in his journal for those years; included are many interesting observations on German university life. There is also much material on his nursery business in Virginia. Organizational files are numerous, e.g. Association of American Geographers, Columbia University, U. S. Department of Agriculture. Much of the correspondence is limited to only a few letters from each correspondent. Among the names included are: Willard G. Bixby, Isaiah Bowman, John W. Hershey, Emory R. Johnson, Walter C. Lowdermilk (of particular note is his 1926 paper, written while at the University of Nanking, "Forest Conservation in Shansi, China"), and Lewis Mumford.