Henry Guerlac papers

The majority of the papers in this collection pertain to Guerlac's teaching career and to the writing and publication of his book on Isaac Newton. Included are correspondence; notebooks; photographs and negatives; photograph albums; scrapbooks; drawings; radio transcripts; journals; his thesis and dissertation; drafts and galley proofs, articles, reports, book reviews, and other materials pertaining to Guerlac's published works; lecture notes and syllabi for courses Guerlac taught at Cornell; research materials, including notes, bibliographies, and photocopies of manuscripts; and miscellaneous papers relating to Guerlac's personal and professional activities. Subjects include Guerlac's work at Harvard, Yale, MIT, Wisconsin, and Cornell; students; the history of science and the history of ideas; a variety of scientific topics, including astronomy (comets), biology, botany, chemistry, geology, radar, optics and color; math; publications, including History of Science, Journal of the History of Ideas, Isis, and others; editing and publishing; the Sarton Award; the History of Science Society; 17th and 18th century figures, including Newton (and the Opticks), Boscovich, Lavoisier, La Brosse (Ange de Saint-Joseph), and Galileo; and personal papers concerning music (especially violin), his boyhood and education, Vicious Circle Club, the Ithaca Festival, travel, and other topics.

The collection also includes research files, drafts, and correspondence relating to an edition of Newton's Opticks, never published; reprints of Guerlac's articles; and subject files of notes and research materials relating to eighteenth century history, particularly the French Revolution, and to eighteenth century science, particularly chemistry and biology.

Correspondents include Marie Boas (Hall), Denis I. Duveen, Roger Hahn, Rio Howard, Robert Kargon, David Kubrin, William Langer, Harry Woolf, L. Pearce Williams, Betty Jo Dobbs, Margaret Candee Jacob, George Sarton, Bernard Cohen, W.J. King, James B. Sumner, and others.