Guide to the Richard Hawley Tucker papers
MS.253
Alix Norton
University of California, Santa Cruz
2016
1156 High Street
Santa Cruz 95064
speccoll@library.ucsc.edu
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
University of California, Santa Cruz
Title: Richard Hawley Tucker papers
creator:
Tucker, R. H. (Richard Hawley)
Identifier/Call Number: MS.253
Physical Description:
2.53 Linear Feet
6 boxes
Date (inclusive): 1879-1939
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research.
Arrangement
This collection is organized into five series:
- 1. Correspondence
- 2. Writings and research files
- 3. San Luis, Argentina expedition files
- 4. Memorabilia
- 5. Photographs
Materials within each series are arranged in chronological order.
Biographical / Historical
Richard Hawley Tucker was an astronomer at the Lick Observatory during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tucker was
born in 1859 in Maine, and began studying civil engineering and astronomy at Lehigh University in 1875 at age 15. Upon graduation
in 1879, he started working as Assistant at the Dudley Observatory in Albany, New York, where he remained for four years before
becoming Instructor of Mathematics and Astronomy at Lehigh University. A year later, Tucker began assisting in a survey of
the southern skies at the Argentine National Observatory in Cordoba with Dr. B.A. Gould and John H. Thorne. He remained there
until 1893, when he was offered a staff astronomer position at the Lick Observatory to oversee the study of precise star positions
using the Meridian Circle. In 1908, Tucker left the Lick Observatory to lead a three-year expedition in San Luis, Argentina,
where he and his team collected 87,000 observations of the positions of 15,000 stars. He returned to Lick in 1911 and remained
an astronomer there until he retired and became Professor Emeritus in 1926. Tucker married Ruth Standen in 1914, and they
had two daughters, Mary and Jane. Tucker died in 1952 in Palo Alto, California.
Preferred Citation
Richard Hawley Tucker papers. MS 253. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of California, Santa
Cruz.
Related Materials
Additional Tucker correspondence from 1893-1916 can be found in Series 1 of the Lick Observatory records:
The Tucker family papers are available at the Historic New England Library and Archives:
Scope and Contents
This collection contains the personal and professional papers of Richard Hawley Tucker, an astronomer who worked at the Lick
Observatory from 1893 to 1926. It includes family letters, professional correspondence, research materials, manuscripts, reprints,
memorabilia, and photograph albums showing life on Mount Hamilton around the turn of the century, as well as Tucker's travels
in South America.
Publication Rights
Property rights for this collection reside with the University of California. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained
by the creators and their heirs. The publication or use of any work protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use
for research or educational purposes requires written permission from the copyright owner. Responsibility for obtaining permissions,
and for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information on copyright or to order a reproduction, please visit
guides.library.ucsc.edu/speccoll/reproduction-publication.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Astronomy
Lick Observatory
Tucker, R. H. (Richard Hawley)
Tucker, R. H. (Richard Hawley)
Correspondence
1879-1939
Scope and Contents
This series contains Tucker's personal and professional correspondence, as well as letters from his time working for the United
States Coast and Geodetic Survey in New York.
Box 1, Folder 9
New York State Coast and Geodetic Survey
1880, 1939
Box 6
Professional correspondence
1896-1904
Box 1, Folder 10-15
Professional correspondence
1905-1911
Writings and research files
1879-1912
Scope and Contents
This series contains writings by Tucker, including personal diaries, research manuscripts, proofs and drafts of publications,
and reprints. Also included are charts, logs, observations, reductions, notes, and other research materials related to his
work with the Meridian Circle.
Box 1, Folder 16-18
Diaries
1879-1888
Scope and Contents
Includes Tucker's personal daily records while at Dudley Observatory, Lehigh University, and the Argentine National Observatory.
Physical Characteristics
3 diaries
Box 2, Folder 5
"Meridian Circle Observations made at Lick Observatory"
1896-1901
Box 2, Folder 6
"Meridian Circle Observations of Reference Stars for the Planet Eros, at Opposition"
1900
Box 2, Folder 7
"Plan for Division Error Determinations"
circa 1900
Box 2, Folder 8
"The San Luis Observatory of the Carnegie Institution,"
Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
1912
Box 2, Folder 9
"The Star Lists of 99 Stars Between -10 and +15 Declination"
undated
San Luis, Argentina Expedition
1908-1911
Scope and Contents
This series contains materials from Tucker's direction of an expedition to San Luis, Argentina, from 1908 to 1911. It includes
financial documents, itineraries, correspondence, details on the construction of the observatory at San Luis, and records
of astronomical observations conducted there.
Box 2, Folder 10
Steamship trip to San Luis
1908
Box 2, Folder 11
Construction at San Luis
1908, 1910
Box 2, Folder 13
Astronomical observations and calculations
1908-1910
Box 2, Folder 19
Memorabilia
1893-1922
Scope and Contents
Tucker's memorabilia includes clippings, invitations, schedules, newsletters, and other collected ephemera.
Box 3, Box 4, Box 5
Photographs
1884-1926
Physical Characteristics
6 albums and 1 folder of loose photographs
Scope and Contents
This series contains photographs of Tucker's personal life and travels, including albums of his family and Lick Observatory
staff on Mount Hamilton from 1918 to 1926, a trip to Alaska in 1900, and various travels to Chile, Cordoba and San Luis in
Argentina, and other parts of South America around the turn of the 20th century.
