Scope and Content Note
The papers of George Gamow (1904-1968) and Barbara Gamow (1905-1976) cover the period 1915 to 1975, but the bulk of the collection originates after 1950. George Gamow's papers, which constitute about two-thirds of the total, are concentrated in the years 1960-1968 and are chiefly scientific and professional. Barbara Gamow's papers consist primarily of personal and literary correspondence from 1928 to 1975. The collection is organized in Family Correspondence, General Correspondence, Personal Correspondence of Barbara Gamow, Speeches and Writings, Miscellany, Addition, and Oversize series.
Broad in scope, the papers provide source material for biographical studies and for the scientific and intellectual history of the period. Topics treated include theoretical physics, astrophysics, big bang theory, nuclear energy, nuclei, quasistellar objects, genetic coding, RNA coding, and number theory.
Well known in academic fields as a physicist and astronomer, George Gamow was perhaps more widely known to the world at large for his work as a popularizer of scientific literature. In the Speeches and Writings File are examples of both aspects of Gamow's work. There is various material about Mr. Tompkins, the fictitious bank clerk with a scientific curiosity whom Gamow used in his books for lay readers. There are also first drafts of several of his other books, numerous published and unpublished articles, and various original drawings and illustrations for texts. Other drawings for books and for Gamow's personal use are in the Miscellany series.
George Gamow's professional and scientific correspondence as well as the Gamows' social correspondence is in the General Correspondence series. Of especial interest for the scientist or scientific historian is Gamow's correspondence with Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman on the big bang theory, with Charles Critchfield on nuclear energy and nuclei, with Paul Dirac on gravity, with Martynas Yčas on the origination of the genetic code (with specific reference to RNA coding), and also posthumous letters to Gamow from all over the world. There is, however, virtually no correspondence prior to 1950; all discussion of scientific theory is related to developments after that date. This limitation in chronology, as reported by Barbara Gamow in 1964 correspondence with the Library of Congress, is due to George Gamow's tendency to destroy incoming letters once he had answered them and to keep no copies of outgoing correspondence. Many of George Gamow's original letters, as well as photocopies of originals, do exist in the collection, but not in great bulk. Among his significant correspondents are Sir John Cockcroft, Pascal Civici, Albert Einstein, William F. Friedeman and Elizabeth Friedman, J. Allen Hynek, Ronald Mansbridge, Sir Nevill Mott, Ronald Searle, Albert Szent-Györgyi, and Edward Teller.
The Personal Correspondence series consists of letters to and from Barbara Gamow. Married to J. R. de la Torre Bueno, a scholar and editor, from 1938 to 1943, and to George Gamow from 1958 until his death in 1968, she spent most of her career in the publishing business and was acquainted with writers, illustrators, editors, and others in the world of publishing. From 1958 to 1970, much of Barbara Gamow's time was spent editing and translating for her husband and carrying on some of his professional correspondence. Although she herself did not publish any books, she wrote verse for some of George Gamow's books, including Faust; Eine Historie, and she was a prolific letter writer. Copies of her letters are not well represented in the papers, but references in letters received indicate the scope of her writing.
During the early 1930s Barbara Gamow moved in circles that included the poet E. E. Cummings and his wife Marion Morehouse, scholars Edward Niles Hooker and Albert Guerard, filmmakers Stan Brakhage and John Larson, psychologists Evelyn Caldwell Hooker and Bernard Friedlander, and writers Raymong Peckham Holden, James Broughton, Charles Norman, Eda Lord, Sybille Bedford, Frances and Garner James, and Morgan Shepard. Letters from these and others provide source material for biographical studies of the correspondents and their acquaintances. Detailed letters over many years cover periods of youth, careers, and retirement. For the later years, there is material relating to old age, some aspects of the psychology of women, and discussions on parapsychology.
The Addition consists of George Gamow's correspondence with Martynas Yčas about the biological code and with Robert Herman about cosmology, arithmetic, and the big bang theory. Also included are letters by Gamow related to the works of Immanuel Velikovsky and other letters from Peter Brosche.