Smith, Cyril Stanley, 1903-
Cyril Stanley Smith papers, 1922-1992.
Smith's career as a teacher at MIT is documented in correspondence and plans for the development of courses at MIT in the history of technology, a proposed Center for the Study of Technology, and course notes for his class Technology, Power, and Values (21.08J). Information about his course History of Materials (21.414J) includes course notes, glass slides, metal samples, photographs, tapes and drawings, and a bound set of student term papers (1963, 1965, 1967). Correspondence, drawings, and notes document his research on the history of metallurgy, the interrelationships of art, science, and technology, and the study of Sir Francis Drake's plaque left in California in the sixteenth century. Trips to Iran to conduct research in ancient metallurgical techniques are documented in reports, notes, and photographs.
There is professional correspondence about his publications, awards, and research; correspondence about planning for conferences in the history of metallurgy and the conservation of metal, and other conferences he attended; and audiocassettes of lectures he gave. The collection includes drafts, reprints of Smith's lectures and writings, including his editions of several classical works on metallurgy, such as the medieval work On Diverse Arts, by Theophilus, and the PIROTECHNIA, by Biringuccio (1540). Also included are notes and drafts of his articles concerning structure as it relates to underlying patterns in both art and science, and annotated copies of his books A Search for Structure and Sources for the History of the Science of Steel. There is biographical information about Smith in the collection, personal correspondence, a videotape of a memorial lecture for Smith held in Toronto in 1992, the program from his MIT memorial service, and letters of condolence to his wife, Alice Kimball Smith, upon his death in 1992.
Related collection in the Institute Archives: MC 369. Alice Kimball Smith.
Cyril Stanley Smith, 1903-1992, B.Sc., University of Birmingham, England; Sc.D. 1926, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was a research metallurgist at the American Brass Company from 1927 to 1942; a member of the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb from 1943 to 1946; and, from 1946 to 1961, a member of the faculty at the University of Chicago, where he was founder and director of the Institute for the Study of Metals. Appointed to MIT as Institute Professor in 1961, he held joint positions in the Departments of Metallurgy and Humanities until his retirement as professor emeritus in 1969. He was one of the original members of the general advisory committee to the Atomic Energy Commission; he also served on the Committee on Science and Public Policy of the National Academy of Sciences and the President's Science Advisory Committee.
He was known for his work in physical metallurgy, particularly in areas such as the effect of explosive shock on the structure of metals, the role of interface energy and topology in the structure of polychrystalline materials, and the application of metallography to the study of artifacts. He was a pioneer in the application of materials science and engineering to the study of archaeological artifacts. His research in the history of science and technology focused on the historical relationship between people from the beginning of human history and the materials they came to understand and use. His books include A History of Metallurgy: The Development of Ideas on the Structure of Metals before 1890 (1960), Sources for the History of the Science of Steel (1980), A Search for Structure (ca. 1981), and From Art to Science (1980), an outgrowth of a 1978 exhibit he arranged for the Smithsonian Institution and MIT.
Dibner, Bern.
Drake, Francis, Sir, 1540-1596.
Fuller, R. Buckminster (Richard Buckminster), 1895-1983
Hughes, Thomas Parke.
Kepes, Gyorgy, 1906-
Lechtman, Heather.
Lehmann-Haupt, Hellmut, 1903-
Orowan, E. (Egon), 1902-1989
Smith, Alice Kimball
Smith, Cyril Stanley, 1903- . A Search for structure.
Smith, Cyril Stanley, 1903- . Mappae clavicula.
Smith, Cyril Stanley, 1903- . Sources for the history of the science of steel, 1532-1786.
Smith, Cyril Stanley, 1903- . The Welding of copper.
American Society for Metals -- 1965-1979.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Materials Science and Technology.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for the Study aod Technology (Proposed)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Humanities -- Study and teaching -- 1958-1973.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Metallurgy -- Study and taeching -- 1961-1973.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology -- Faculty -- Personal and professional papers.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Archaeological Technology.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Science, Technology and Society -- 1967-1972.
Society for the History of Technology
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
Sorby Centennial Symposium on the History of Metallurgy (1963 : Cleveland)
Art and science -- History.
Art and technology -- History.
Materials -- History.
Metallurgy -- History.
Metallurgical research -- Techniques.
Structural analysis (Engineering)
AIP-ICOS
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute Archives and Special Collections. M.I.T. Libraries, Rm. 14N-118, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA