Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Joseph S. Marriott Papers
H.Mss.0050
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Title: Joseph S. Marriott Papers
Dates: 1895-1997 and
undated
Collection number: H.Mss.0050
Creator:
Marriott, Joseph S., 1895-1984
Extent:
3.6 Linear Feet
(1 document box, 1 half-size document box, 2 flat
boxes)
Repository:
Claremont Colleges. Library. Special Collections, The Claremont
Colleges Library, Claremont, CA 91711.
Abstract: Writings and speeches,
photographs, correspondence, and printed matter, relating to Joseph S. Marriott's career in
the Civil Aeronautics Administration and its predecessor, the Bureau of Air Commerce, with
special reference to the states of California, Hawaii, Arizona, and Utah.
Physical Location: Please consult repository.
Language of Material: Languages represented in the
collection: English.
Administrative Information
Collection open for research.
All requests for permission to reproduce or to publish must be submitted in writing to
Special Collections.
[Identification of item], Joseph S. Marriott Papers (H.Mss.0050). Special Collections, The
Claremont Colleges Library, The Claremont Colleges Services, Claremont, California.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Gift by Joseph S. Marriott's widow to Harvey Mudd College, 1984.
No additions to the collection are anticipated.
Collection processed by Michael P. Palmer, June 2004; revised by Michael P. Palmer, May
2010 and April 2023.
Biography / Administrative History
Joseph Sylvester Marriott was born on a farm near Waterford, Stanislaus County, California,
on July 5, 1895. He graduated from Stanford University in 1917, with a B.A. in Analytical
Chemistry. After attending Aviation Ground School at the University of California, Berkeley,
and receiving his flight training at Rockwell Field, San Diego, he was commissioned a first
lieutenant in the aviation section of the Army Signal Corps in December 1917. He served as a
flight instructor at Park Field, Millington, Tennessee. For a brief time after the war, he
flew barnstorming exhibitions with the Memphis Aerial Company. At the end of 1920, he
returned to California, received a teaching credential, and taught high school chemistry and
physics for five years in Marin County. During this period, he retained his affiliation with
the Army Reserve. In 1927, he obtained a position with the newly established Aeronautics
Branch of the Department of Commerce. The Aeronautics Branch developed into the Bureau of
Air Commerce and became the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) in 1938, and the Federal
Aviation Agency (FAA) in 1958. Except for service as the War Department member on the
Inter-Departmental Air Traffic Control Board during World War II, Marriott remained with the
Commerce Department until his retirement in 1956. During the 1930s he served as Assistant
Chief, then Chief of Inspection Service, for the Bureau of Air Commerce. Upon leaving active
military service in 1946, he became CAA regional manager for the five southwestern states;
when the CAA was reorganized several years later his authority was extended to cover the 11
western states. A lieutenant colonel by 1936, he was promoted to colonel in 1943, and to
brigadier general between 1952 and 1954. From 1966 to November 18, 1978, Joseph Marriott was
Chairman of the Bates Foundation, that funded the Bates Aeronautics Program at Harvey Mudd
College. He died in Vista, California, in March 1984.
Source: Joseph S. Marriott. Safety Regulations and Air Traffic Control. Interview with John
B. Rae, December 27, 1962. Claremont, CA: Oral History Program, Claremont Graduate School,
1962.
Scope and Contents of the Collection
The collection consists of writings and speeches, photographs, correspondence, and printed
matter, relating to Joseph S. Marriott's career in the Civil Aeronautics Administration and
its predecessor, the Bureau of Air Commerce, with special reference to the states of
California, Hawaii, Arizona, and Utah. The collection also includes awards and memorials,
biographical materials, consulting project materials, newspaper clippings, postal covers,
publications, and scrapbooks.
Award and memorial materails relate to and include Marriott's receipt of the Legion of
Merit in 1946; a proposal for the Colonel Joseph S. Marriott Unit Achievement Award, to be
presented by the Air Reserve Association, 1955; a resolution by the Harvey Mudd College
Board of Trustees, 1978; and the induction of Marriott into the International Forest of
Friendship, Atchison, Kansas, in 1997. Biographical materials include Marriott's
autobiography, covering the years 1895-1945. The consulting project materials relate to a
project Marriott undertook with Pertamina (Indonesia National Energy Company), Djkarta,
under the auspices of International Executive Service Corps, New York. The correspondence
consists of a carbon copy of a humorous letter from 1947, signed by A. O. Oeland,
purportedly relating to his experiences as a student pilot, and an exchange in 1958 between
Marriott and Jacqueline Cochran Odlum concerning a proposed visit by Marriott to the Odlum
ranch. The newspaper clippings relate primarily to Marriott's career in the Civil
Aeronautics Administration, both before and after World War II; they also include some items
relating to family matters. The photographs relate to air navigation aids, primarily radio
towers and beacons, 1946-1956, in the western states (in particular, California, Hawaii,
Arizona, and Utah) that Marriott supervised as CAA Regional Manager. They also include
copies of photographs of the 1910 Los Angeles (Dominguez Hills) Air Meet, two aerial
photographs of San Diego Bay (1919 and 1951), and a few personal photographs. The postal
covers relate to first flights on newly opened commercial airline routes, primarily by
Transworld Air Lines in the United States, but including the first Transpacific air mail
service from Fiji to the United States in 1941; the first exploratory polar flight by
Scandinavian Airline System from Los Angeles to Copenhagen in 1951 (and the first flight of
regular service on the same route in 1954); the first flight of the U.S. Air Force over the
South Pole, 1956; and the first flight of American Airlines air mail jet service between Los
Angeles and New York, 1959. Postal covers from the 1970s and 1980s honor the Skylab 4
launch, 1973; the space shuttle orbiter rollout, 1976; and the launches of space shuttle
Columbia STS-1, STS-2, and STS-3), 1981-1982. Publications and printed materials include a
photocopy of the first printed
Air Commerce Regulations (1927); a copy of the
June 1929 issue of
Aviation magazine; the Society of Airway Pioneers 1980
Yearbook and Directory, and an undated, unsigned, carbon copy single sheet, "... And God
Created Louisiana". The scrapbooks consist of 2 volumes of photocopies of photographs,
certificates, newspaper clippings, awards, and other materials relating to Marriott's career
(the original materials remain with the Marriott family); approximately half the first
volume comprises a photocopy of the official program for the Bendix Trophy Race, held at
Union Air Termninal, Burbank, California, in 1934. Marriott's writings and speeches
primarily concern government interest in, and regulation of, civil aviation, particularly in
the 1920's and 1930's.
Los Angeles [Dominguez Hills] Aviation Meet. Program dated 12 January 1910. Now James
Carruthers Memorial Aviation Collection of the Institute of Aeronautical History, Special
Collections, The Claremont Colleges Library, MS H1950.2, Subseries 3.4 (Air Meets, Air
Shows, and Historic Flights, 1910-1958), Box 11, Folder 1, No. 1.
Joseph Marriott may also be the source for James Carruthers Memorial Aviation Collection of
the Institute of Aeronautical History, Special Collections, The Claremont Colleges Library,
MS H1950.2, Series 7, comprising draft maps prepared by the Aeronautics Branch of the U.S.
Department of Commerce for publication in its
List of airports and landing fields,
Aeronautics bulletin, no. 5 (Washington, DC: Government Printing office, 1928-1931) and
Descriptions of airports and landing fields in the United States, Airway bulletin,
no. 2 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1931ff). Marriott was responsible for the
creation and collection of the materials relating to the region west of the Mississippi River.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
library’s online public access catalog.
Aerial photography
Aeronautics
Aeronautics, Commercial
Air traffic control
Airport control towers
Aviation -- California, Southern
Marriott, Joseph S., 1895-1984
Navigation (Aeronautics)
United States. Civil Aeronautics
Administration
West (U.S.) -- History -- 1890-1945
West (U.S.) -- History -- 1945-
Autobiography
Biography
Clippings (Books, newspapers, etc.)
Correspondence
Covers (Philately)
Photographs
Publications
Scrapbooks
Speeches, addresses, etc.