Papers of electronics history author Jane Morgan. Collection includes correspondence, manuscripts, interview notes, reference files, photographs, news clippings and other printed material relating to the development and production of Morgan's book, Electronics in the West: The First Fifty Years (Palo Alto, CA: National Press Books, 1967).

Jane Morgan was born Rachel Jane Harnden in Montana on April 17, 1916. In the mid-1920s, she started going by "Jane" and around 1928 or 1929, adopted her step-father's surname "Mauerhan." Jane attended UC Berkeley, Occidental College in Los Angeles, and graduated from the University of Southern California in 1938 with a Bachelors degree in Philosophy. She was commissioned in the first class of officers in the Women's Auxiliary Corps of the U.S. Army in 1942, serving in Europe from 1943-1947 as an Intelligence Officer. She married Robert Morgan in 1948 and had two daughters, Carol and Susan. Morgan worked as an assistant secretary for the Institute of American History at Stanford University and volunteered as a secretary for the Perham Foundation as well as serving as a board member. In 1962, Morgan wrote a biography of inventor Lee de Forest that was published as a serial in "Trails for Juniors" and "Junior Life" magazines. After her de Forest project, she was commissioned by the Santa Clara County Office of Education to write the history of electronics development in the San Francisco Bay Area, which resulted in the publication of Electronics in the West: The First Fifty Years in 1967. Morgan continued to work as a freelance writer in Northern California. In her later years, Jane moved to Southern California to live near her daughter Carol. Morgan died on August 23, 2008 in San Diego, California.

12 linear feet

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The papers are available for researchers by appointment through the Curator of Library and Archives.