Boyden Station, June-December, 1953

Contains correspondence, reports, budgets, and memoranda documenting the administrative and research activities of Boyden Station. Several pieces of outgoing correspondence between Bok and Harvard College Observatory director Donald Menzel, astronomer Eric Mervyn Lindsay, and astronomer Jan Oort, explore potential solutions to maintain Boyden Station as an active observatory. A significant portion of correspondence occurs between Bok and European astronomers as they attempted to organize a new administration for continuing operations at Boyden Station using the resources of multiple observatories. Letters between Bok and Henry Smith, acting superintendent of Boyden Station, discuss staffing, the station’s limited budget, and the functionality of several telescopes, particularly the Aarmagh-Dunsink-Harvard telescope. An additional project documented in correspondence between Bok, Smith, and astronomer Dorrit Hoffleit includes Hoffleit’s spectra classification and related use of square plates sent from Boyden Station. Several letters are written in German and Dutch. A letter addressed to Bok from Henry Smith was presumably opened by the recipient and resealed in an envelope marked “confidential,” and discusses Smith's concerns about suspected theft at Boyden Station.