Correspondence with staff, faculty, and others, 1960-1969

This series contains incoming and outgoing correspondence between Goldberg and Harvard faculty, administrators, and Observatory employees, as well as with scientists from outside of the University. Many of the letters relate to administrative and staffing concerns, such as contracts, salaries, and budgets. Other correspondence discusses the Observatory’s teaching activities and scientific functions, including grant applications and research proposals. Some letters touch upon the political and social atmosphere at Harvard, including memoranda between Goldberg and Harvard College Observatory astronomer Richard McCray that refer to the student occupation of University Hall in 1969 and the resulting Committee of Fifteen.

Goldberg corresponds with many prominent Harvard scientists and Observatory astronomers, including Carl Sagan, Fred Whipple, John Wolbach, Donald Menzel, Hector C. Ingrao, and Sergei Gaposchkin. There are also letters with several of the Observatory’s female astronomers, including Barbara Bell, Helen Spence Federer, Margaret N. Lewis, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, Dorothy Weeks, and Frances Woodworth Wright, as well as other female employees, such as Lyle G. Boyd and Thomasine Brooks.

A small number of letters are from members of the general public, mostly requesting scientific information. Letters with non-Harvard intellectuals from the United States and abroad, including scientists from Argentina, Belgium, Germany, India, and the United Kingdom, demonstrate the influence and reach that Goldberg and the Observatory had on the wider scientific community.