Scope and Content Note
The papers of Merle Antony Tuve (1901-1982) span the years 1901-1982, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period between 1941 and 1966. The collection focuses on Tuve's work as a physicist and is organized into the following series: Family Correspondence, General Correspondence, Laboratory File, Administrative File, Subject File, Speeches and Writings, Miscellany, Printed Matter, Notebooks of Winifred Gray Whitman, 1996 Addition, 2019 Addition, and Classified. Included in the papers are correspondence, memoranda, reports, laboratory and personal notebooks, diagrams, blueprints, personnel records, speeches, articles, notes, photographs, and near-print and printed matter.
Although some of Tuve's files are personal in nature, the greater number concern his administration of government-sponsored scientific projects such as the development of the proximity fuze for the United States Navy during World War II. Other files represented in the Administrative Office series reflect his directorship of the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University, 1945-1946, and the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1946-1966. Subjects of note include the Radio Astronomy Project at Greenbank, West Virginia, seismics, cosmic-ray flares, magnetism, and the composition of the upper atmosphere. Material in the file relating to the Applied Physics Laboratory concerns the conversion of war industries to peacetime use. Other topics of interest are the International Geophysical Year, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Washington Conference on Theoretical Physics, 1939-1940.
A sizable portion of the files in the Laboratory and Miscellany series relate to Tuve's academic years, his early teaching career, and his experimental research projects before 1940 with the Carnegie Institution. Project reports, many in Tuve's handwriting, describe experiments with high voltage, the Van de Graaff magnetic field, and basic studies in nuclear physics. Of interest are Tuve's personal notebooks in the Miscellany series which reflect his thoughts on a wide range of topics. The collection also contains scientific notebooks belonging to Tuve's wife, Winifred Gray Whitman in the Notebooks of Winifred Gray Whitman series. On the medical staff of St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C.,Whitman, who retained her maiden name, collaborated with Tuve from 1928 to 1932 in analyzing the effects of high frequency resonance radiation on animals. The notebooks, which record experiments relating to this subject, cover the period 1930-1931 and contain observations in Tuve's handwriting and notations by Whitman.
Prominent correspondents in the General Correspondence series includes: Vannevar Bush, Sir J. A. Fleming, Lawrence Hafstad, John C. Merriam, Howard E. Tatel, Robert Jemison Van de Graaff, Carl Van Doren, and James Lloyd Weatherwax.
The 1996 Addition contains correspondence, writings, and miscellaneous material. For the most part, the correspondence in this addition consists of exchanges of letters between Tuve and professional colleagues and friends concerning physics, astronomy, terrestrial magnetism, and related topics during the period following his retirement until his death. There is a small amount of correspondence concerning family matters. Writings among the addition are divided into two sections, writings by Tuve and writings by others. Writings by Tuve include offprints of scientific papers, speeches, and eulogies. Of note is Tuve's 1973 publication Velocity Structures in Hydrogen Profiles, coauthored with Soren Lundsager. Writings by others consist primarily of offprints written by colleagues as well as a copy of the doctoral dissertation by each of Tuve's children. Also included are drafts of The Deadly Fuze: The Secret Weapon of World War II, submitted to Tuve for commentary by the author, Ralph Belknap Baldwin. This work, published in 1980, chronicles the efforts of Tuve and other scientists in the field of weapons research. Miscellaneous material in the series includes awards, biographical material, obituaries, retirement material, and wills. Also represented are organizations such as the American Geophysical Union, the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the Cosmos Club, the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University, and the National Academy of Sciences, for which Tuve served as home secretary for many years. There are biographical files on Tuve's children as well as his father, sister, and brothers, and numerous photographs, including images of buildings, Tuve family members, award and dedication ceremonies, luncheons and receptions, demonstrations of electronic equipment, and group portraits of formal gatherings as well as single portraits of Tuve. The file on the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition details the discovery and naming of Mt. Tuve on the southernmost continent.
The 2019 Addition complements files found elsewhere in the collection and pertain chiefly to Tuve's professional endeavors as director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution during the period between 1964 and 1966. The series comprises correspondence, notes, technical sketches and photographs, reports, printed matter, and meeting minutes from a variety of boards and advisory committees on which Tuve served. Files related to Tuve's work on the National Academy of Sciences's and National Research Council's joint Latin America Science Board feature prominently, as do the National Academy of Sciences's and National Academy of Engineering's joint Committee on Scientific and Technical Communication. Material pertaining to studies into seismology and telescope image tubes are also well represented in this series.