Yerkes Observatory. Office of the Director.
Yerkes Observatory Office of the Director records, 1891-1946.
Yerkes Observatory, located in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, is a facility of the University of Chicago's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Known as the home of the last of the great refracting telescopes, the observatory housed the university's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics until the 1960s, and was the site of some of the most significant research in modern astronomy and astrophysics. This collection contains records of the Office of the Director of Yerkes Observatory, documenting the administrative history of the observatory from before its founding through the mid-1940s.
The observatory opened in 1897 as the joint creation of three founders: William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago; Professor George E. Hale, the observatorys first director; and Charles T. Yerkes, a wealthy Chicago businessman who provided funds for the erection of the observatory building. Yerkes became known in the astronomical community as the home of the last of the great refracting telescopes, a 40-inch instrument first exhibited at the Worlds Columbian Exposition in 1893. The observatory housed the university's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics until the 1960s. In 1932, the University of Chicago struck an agreement with the University of Texas to construct an observatory endowed by the Texas banker William Johnson McDonald (18441926). Texas at that time had neither the funds nor the faculty for its operation. Under the agreement, the observatory was to be constructed and operated under the direction of Otto Struve, with the understanding that eventually University of Texas would assume complete responsibility for McDonald Observatory. As such, Dr. Struve became the first director of McDonald Observatory. The agreement between University of Chicago and the University of Texas was modified in 1959 as Texas program in astronomy broadened, and in 1962-1963 the entire operation of McDonald Observatory was placed under the Department of Astronomy at The University of Texas.
McDonald Observatory.
University of Chicago.
Yerkes Observatory -- Archival resources.
Astronomical observatories -- United States -- Wisconsin.
AIP-ICOS
University of Chicago. The Joseph Regenstein Library. Department of Special Collections. 1100 East 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA