The papers of Bruce Rule, spanning the years 1933 to 1989, were received over a period of time from different sources. The initial collection, given by the Caltech Astrophysics Department, consists of six and a half linear feet of material related primarily to the 200-inch telescope project at Palomar. These papers include budget items, site and technical information, mostly from the 1930s, in addition to one box of material on the Morris Dam underwater ordnance project (World War II). In 1984, Professor Jesse Greenstein gave the Archives one linear foot of Rule's files from the time he was involved with the Caltech Synchrotron Laboratory. These papers contain reports, technical files and reprints. In 1986, four linear feet of papers were donated by Robert Brucato of the Palomar office. The majority of these papers are committee meetings, reports, proposals, blueprints and test data on various optical telescopes. Additionally, there are field notebooks, symposia papers and reprints. In 1989 Bruce Rule provided one file of biographical data to supplement the material in the collection.

Bruce H. Rule was Director of Caltech's Central Shop and Engineering Facilities and Chief Engineer for Astrophysics and the Caltech Synchrotron. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on December 2, 1908, Rule attended Los Angeles high schools and graduated with a BS in engineering from Caltech in 1932. After a period of employment with the Los Angeles Bureau of Power and Light and the Vernon Department of Light and Power, he returned to Caltech in 1937 to work on the Palomar telescope project, becoming the chief project engineer in 1938. He retired from active service at Caltech in 1976.

Copyright has not been assigned to the California Institute of Technology Archives. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of the Archives. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the California Institute of Technology Archives as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.

Collection is open for research.