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Shane (Charles Donald and Mary Lea) papers
MS.270
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Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
University of California, Santa Cruz
Title: Charles Donald and Mary Lea Shane papers
Creator:
Shane, Charles Donald,
1895-1983
Creator:
Shane, Mary Lea Heger, 1897-1983
Identifier/Call Number: MS.270
Physical Description:
11.2 Linear Feet
17 boxes, 5 oversize boxes
Date (inclusive): 1895-1983
Language of Material:
English .
Collection is open for research.
This collection is organized into eight series, with the first seven series containing C.
Donald Shane's papers:
- 1. Alphabetical files
- 2. Personal and biographical
- 3. International trips
- 4. Research
- 5. Speeches
- 6. Photographs and illustrations
- 7. Diplomas, certificates, and regalia
- 8. Mary Lea Shane papers
Materials within each series are arranged in their original order.
Charles Donald Shane and Mary Lea Heger Shane were key figures at the Lick Observatory
during the 20th century. Both were trained in astronomy and were married in 1920, and lived
on Mount Hamilton for several years. Donald served as the director of the Lick Observatory
from 1945 to 1958, and was integral in the planning and development of the 120-inch
reflector telescope, which was named after him in 1978. He is also known in the field of
astronomy for his work supporting the existence of aggregated clusters of galaxies, now
known as superclusters. Donald married Mary Lea Heger in 1920, who had been working at Lick
Observatory since 1919 and went on to earn her Ph.D. in astronomy in 1924. Mary did not
pursue a career as an astronomer, but was very involved in the Mount Hamilton community and
welcomed visitors from all over the world to the Lick Observatory. She later initiated the
preservation and organization of the archives of the Lick Observatory.
Charles Donald Shane was born on September 6, 1895 in Auburn, California. He began his
career in astronomy by attending the University of California, Berkeley, and graduating in
1915 with a bachelor's degree. He subsequently accepted a teaching position in mathematics
and began his graduate work in astronomy, mathematics, and physics. In 1916, he began a
two-year residential fellowship at the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, taught in Oregon
and Washington during World War I, then returned for another Lick Observatory Fellowship
from 1919-1920. In 1920, Shane earned his Ph.D. degree in astronomy and married Mary Lea
Heger, and was also appointed as a professor of mathematics at the University of California,
Berkeley. Later he moved to teaching astronomy, and by 1941 he was the chair of the
astronomy department at Berkeley. From 1942 to 1945, Shane worked on the Manhattan Project
as assistant director for scientific personnel of the Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley and
in Los Alamos, New Mexico. After World War II, in 1945, Shane became the director of the
Lick Observatory and served for 13 years until 1958. In the 1950s, Shane worked with his
assistant Carl Wirtanen to photograph approximately 70% of the night sky with the Lick
Observatory's 20-inch Carnegie astrograph. Shane and Wirtanen counted galaxies on each of
the 1,246 photographic plates, and showed the existence of aggregates of galaxy clusters.
Shane referred to these aggregated clusters as "clouds", and they are now known as
superclusters. After he resigned as director, Shane stayed at Lick as an astronomer until
his retirement in 1963. On March 19, 1983, Shane passed away at the age of 87.
Mary Lea Heger was born on July 13, 1897 in Wilmington, Delaware. She earned her bachelor's
degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1919, then moved to Mount Hamilton to
perform her thesis research at the Lick Observatory. During her time there, she made a
discovery of the presence of sodium atoms in interstellar space. She married C. Donald Shane
in 1920, and earned her Ph.D. degree at Berkeley in 1924. On Mount Hamilton, Mary enjoyed
hosting visitors to the Lick Observatory as the director's wife, and she spent much of her
time doing research on the history of the Lick Observatory and its key historical figures.
Later she began collecting and preserving materials related to the Lick Observatory, and in
1966 these documents were moved to the UC Santa Cruz Library as a research collection. In
1982, a ceremony was held at the library to name this collection the Mary Lea Shane Archives
of the Lick Observatory (now available as the Lick Observatory Records, collection UA.036).
Mary passed away in 1983 at the age of 86.
Charles Donald and Mary Lea Shane Papers. MS 270. Special Collections and Archives,
University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Finding aid revision statement
This finding aid was revised in the Reparative Archival Redescription Project in 2021-2022.
Previous versions of this finding aid are available upon request.
Related materials can be found in the following series of Lick Observatory records:
To access the full-text PDFs of the oral histories of Charles Donald and Mary Lea Shane on
eScholarship, click the links below:
This collection contains the papers of Charles Donald Shane, director of the Lick
Observatory from 1945-1958, and his wife, Mary Lea Shane. Most of the materials are from
Charles Donald Shane's professional work at the Lick Observatory and with the University of
California, and include professional and personal correspondence, subject and research
files, his autobiography, biographical materials on other astronomers, speeches and essays,
site reports from Chile and other trips outside the United States, photographs of family
members and travels, and some of his original research materials. The series of Mary Lea
Shane papers contain her research on the Lick Observatory, and correspondence related to her
work as the curator of the Lick Observatory Archives throughout the last half of the 20th
century.
Copyright for the items in this collection is owned by the creators and their heirs.
Reproduction or distribution of any work protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair
use requires permission from the copyright owner. It is the responsibility of the user to
determine whether a use is fair use, and to obtain any necessary permissions. For more
information see UCSC Special Collections and Archives policy on Reproduction and Use.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Astronomy
Shane, Charles Donald,
1895-1983
Lick Observatory
Shane, Mary Lea Heger, 1897-1983