Glasser (Otto and Wilhelm Röentgen) Papers, 1845-1979

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Summary

Title:
Otto Glasser and Wilhelm Röentgen papers
Dates:
1845-1979
Creators:
Dibner family
Abstract:
Papers belonging to German Otto Glasser, physicist and pioneer in radiology, and German physicist, and the discoverer of X-rays, Wilhelm Conrad Röentgen.
Extent:
2.3 Linear Feet (5 boxes)
Language:
Materials are in English, German, and French.
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item]. Otto Glasser and Wilhelm Röentgen papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Background

Scope and content:

The collection consists of articles, correspondence, chiefly written by or to Otto Glasser, photographs, pamphlets, X-rays, and, an X-ray tube used by Röentgen. There are several copies of the X-ray Röentgen took of his wife, Anna Bertha's hand on December 22, 1895, and an X-ray of the hand of a gunshot victim, taken by Michael I. Pupin in February 1896. Correspondents include Thomas Edison, Bern Dibner, Wilhelm Conrad Röentgen, Arthur R. Von Hippel, and numerous other scientists and physicists. There are several articles written by, as well as X-rays done by, Wolfram Conrad Fuchs, a German electrical engineer who became a pioneer in radiography.

Biographical / historical:

Otto Glasser was born in Saarbrucken, Germany in 1895. He attended the University of Freiberg and received his PhD in physics in 1919. In 1922, he immigrated to the United States where he held positions at the Howard Kelly Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, the Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio, and Columbia University, New York City, before returning to Cleveland, where he became head of the Department of Biophysics at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. He worked on radiation and X-rays and was one of the first scientists to measure radioactive fallout. Glasser was an authority on German physicist, and discoverer of X-rays, Wilhelm Conrad Röentgen and published a biography of his life in 1931.

Wilhelm Conrad Röentgen was born in Lennep, Germany in 1845. He was educated at the Polytechnic at Zurich and the University of Zurich. He was a lecturer at Strasbourg University, professor at the Academy of Agriculture at Hohenheim in Wurttemberg, the Chair of Physics at the University of Giessen, Germany, and finally at the University of Munich in 1900. He is primarily known for his discovery of the rays he termed "X-rays," which earned him the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. Röentgen died in Munich in 1923.

Acquisition information:
Burndy Library Collection, Gift of Dibner Family, November 2006.
Processing information:

Processed by Catherine Wehrey in May 2010. In November 2024, Brooke M. Black created an electronic finding aid.

Arrangement:

Organized in three series: Series 1. Correspondence, 1896-1935; Series 2: Documents and ephemera, 1895-1979; Series 3. Photographs, negatives, X-rays, and X-ray tube, 1890-1930.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Brooke M. Black
Date Encoded:
This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2024-11-22 09:17:54 -0800 .

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open for use by qualified researchers and by appointment. Please contact Reader Services at the Huntington Library for more information.

Restrictions apply to:

RESTRICTED. Boxes 3 and 5, fragile, available with curatorial approval only.

Terms of access:

The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item]. Otto Glasser and Wilhelm Röentgen papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Location of this collection:
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108, US
Contact:
(626) 405-2191
reference@huntington.org
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