Scope and Content Note
The papers of Harrell Vaun Noble (1907-1982) span the years 1923-2003, with the bulk of the material dating from 1932 to 1972. The papers, organized alphabetically by type of material or topic, primarily cover Noble’s career in electronic engineering involving radios and transmitters especially during World War II and molecular electronics, today called microelectronics, at the Westinghouse Electronics and Manufacturing Company and at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
The biographical file contains clippings, résumés, research material, and articles documenting the breadth of Noble’s career. The articles written by his children along with the accompanying photographs are especially informative about the various projects, developments, and scientific breakthroughs achieved by Noble. A majority of the photographs pertain to Noble’s time at the Westinghouse Electronics and Manufacturing Company. Photographs encompassing his later career are filed separately.
Of interest in the research material is correspondence written to Noble’s daughter, Linda C. Joseph, by associates and acquaintances such as Jack S. Kilby and William C. Brown in praise of his pioneering achievements in microelectronics. Other correspondents include Stewart Cummins, Amos H. Dicke, and G. Ross Kilgore. Noble’s accomplishments are also documented in his awards, certificates, patents, and in the printed matter.
Noble’s years at the Radio Corporation of America and the Crosley Radio Corporation, later Aviation Corporation, are represented by notebooks containing photographs of equipment and field tests along with technical manuals. The material covers the development of commercial and government transmitters as well as several World War II radio receivers, transmitters, and radars including the Signal Corps SCR-284 and SCR-694 communication sets. Published articles and printed matter from the 1930s and 1940s kept for reference supplement this material.
The speeches and writings contain the majority of the information on molecular electronics and consist of Noble’s published articles, papers, and presentations. Of interest is the unpublished book of essays entitled “Molecular Electronics” for which chapters were contributed by various persons in the field, most notably Jack S. Kilby. The molecular electronics material is supplemented by photographs, artifacts such as an early functional component from General Electric and early integrated circuits, and Noble’s annotated business cards on which he recorded meetings and discussions.