Dudley R. Herschbach personal archive

The Dudley R. Herschbach personal archive documents the academic and professional career of Dudley R. Herschbach from 1932 to 2018. The collection is a valuable resource for research in the history of chemistry and chemical physics and documents Herschbach's involvement as a teacher, writer, advisor, and consultant, on matters of science at the highest levels of academia and government. Herschbach was a prolific researcher, letter writer, and author, and thus much of the collection consists of correspondence, research notes, published articles, lectures, and course materials produced during his career. The collection also contains personal items and ephemera, including awards, biographical sketches, and correspondence about Herschbach and his family from 1932 to 2018. Nobel Prize files concern the Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Herschbach in 1986.

Herschbach's teaching activities and chemistry research, as well as his efforts to improve public understanding of science, are highlighted in several series in this collection. The lecture notes, syllabi, problem sets, examinations, and laboratory notebooks found in the Teaching notes series in this collection document Herschbach's chemistry instruction at Harvard University, Texas A & M University, and the University of California (Berkeley) from 1947 to 2012. The Research notes, the Government and Industry funding files, the Publication reprints, and the Publication and manuscript series document Herschbach's research in such areas as molecular structure, collision processes, molecular beam scattering, dynamics of chemical reactions, and intermolecular forces in liquids from 1947 to 2015. Herschbach's addresses found in the Talks series highlight his efforts to promote the importance and the publics understanding of science education in the United States. Herschbach's class notes document his early studies of chemistry and chemical physics at Stanford University and Harvard University.

Illustrated in the Correspondence files series are Herschbach's interactions with scientists, scholars, academics, and Nobel laureates. Consultancy files highlight Herschbach's association with agencies at the highest level of government, such as the United States Department of Energy. The Meeting files and Committee and board membership files in the collection relate to Herschbach's involvement in many societies, including the National Academy of Sciences, the Society for Science and the Public, the American Chemical Society, the American Institute of Physics, and the American Philosophical Society. These series document Herschbach's interaction with chemists and his participation in the development of science education in the United States.

Harvard University files in the collection illustrate Herschbach's work to develop, improve, and support the chemistry department at Harvard. These files also document Herschbach's service on the Committee on the Status of Women at Harvard and document Herschbach and his wife, Georgene's oversight of Currier House, one of twelve undergraduate residential Houses of Harvard College.