Robert Bigham Brode papers, 1922-1975

Summary

Creators:

Brode, Robert B. (Robert Bigham)

Abstract:

The Robert Bigham Brode papers including correspondence, course materials, notebooks, administrative files and artifacts.

Extent:

10 cartons, 1 cardbox, 1 oversize folder (13 linear feet)

Language:

Collection materials are in English

Background

Scope and content:

The Robert Bigham Brode papers, 1922-1975, contain correspondence, administrative files, notebooks, organizational files, writings, course materials, publications and artifacts that document his career at U.C. Berkeley, his extensive professional commitments and notable research on cosmic rays. Highlights of the collection include extensive files on Brode’s participation in such groups as the American Institute of Physics and their Committee on Physics Faculties in Colleges, the American Association of Physics Teachers and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the Department of State. In addition, the photographs chronicle many of Brode’s experiments and the declassified files included provide some insight into his contributions to the war effort in the 1940s.

Biographical / historical:

Among one of the first individuals to be conferred a PhD in Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1924, Robert Bigham Brode had an illustrious career that included receiving a Rhodes Scholarship, a National Research Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Fulbright Fellowship. One of triplets born in 1900 in Walla Walla, WA (Wallace was a chemist and Malcolm was a biologist), he earned his bachelor’s degree from Whitman College, where his father was a biology professor, in 1921. His early research concerned the structural similarities in the external electrons of molecules such as nitrogen and carbon monoxide. Brode taught at U.C. Berkeley from 1927 until 1967, and focused his research primarily on cosmic rays. From 1942-1946, he worked at the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University and the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico. At the latter, Brode was in charge of the “fusing group” on the Manhattan Project.

Acquisition information:

Donated by Physics Department, U.C. Berkeley in 1997.

Physical location:

Many of the Bancroft Library collections are stored offsite and advance notice may be required for use. For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the library's online catalog.

Rules or conventions:

Finding Aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard

Location of this collection:

UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library

University of California, Berkeley, The Bancroft Library

Berkeley, CA 94720-6000, US

Contact:

510-642-6481

bancref-library@berkeley.edu

Website