Hamilton Moore Jeffers papers, 1895-1975

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Summary

Creators:
Jeffers, Hamilton Moore
Extent:
3.6 Linear Feet 5 half cartons, 1 document box, 1 half document box
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

Hamilton Moore Jeffers papers. MS 262. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz.

Background

Scope and content:

This collection documents the work of Hamilton Moore Jeffers, an astronomer who spent much of his career at the Lick Observatory. Materials include his professional and personal correspondence, some research notes, personal and family photographs, class notes from his student work at the University of California at Berkeley, and reports and correspondence from his time as an operations analyst in the Air Force during World War II.

Biographical / historical:

Hamilton Moore Jeffers was an astronomer and astrometrist born in 1893 in Sewickley, Pennsylvania. He earned both his A.B. degree in 1917 and his Ph.D. degree in astronomy in 1921 from the University of California, Berkeley. After earning his Ph.D., Jeffers was appointed as an instructor of astronomy at the State University of Iowa, and stayed there for almost three years. In 1924 he accepted an offer as Assistant Astronomer at the Lick Observatory, where he had completed much of his graduate work while a student at Berkeley. Jeffers became a full astronomer in 1938, and remained at Lick until his retirement in 1961. He is known for his work in positional astronomy and for his use of the meridian circle, and was mainly interested in observations of minor planets, comets, and double stars. Jeffers contributed to the observatory’s Index Catalogue of Visual Double Stars, published in 1963, collaborating with W.H. van den Bos to list over 64,000 instances of double stars. During World War II, Jeffers left the Lick Observatory to serve in the war, first at the radiation laboratory at MIT, then as operations analyst for the Army Air Forces in Alaska and India. In 1950, Jeffers married Bobbe de Vore, a secretary at the Lick Observatory. He lived in Carmel, California, near his brother, poet Robinson Jeffers, and photographer Ansel Adams. Jeffers retired in 1961, and died in 1976 in Carmel, California.

Arrangement:

This collection is organized into six series:

  • 1. Correspondence
  • 2. Research
  • 3. Personal
  • 4. Student notebooks
  • 5. Air Force materials
  • 6. Photographs

Materials within each series are arranged in chronological order, unless otherwise specified.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Collection is open for research.

Terms of access:

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.

Preferred citation:

Hamilton Moore Jeffers papers. MS 262. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz.

Location of this collection:
Special Collections and Archives, University Library
1156 High Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95064, US
Contact:
(831) 459-2547
speccoll@library.ucsc.edu
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