Records of the Harvard College Observatory Associate Director Bart J. Bok : subject files

The Harvard College Observatory was founded in 1839 by the Harvard Corporation after decades of attempts to develop an observatory at Harvard University. Under the Observatory's first two directors, William Cranch Bond and his son, George Phillips Bond, the Observatory began an extensive study of the Orion Nebula and Saturn, discovering the eighth satellite of Saturn, Hyperion in 1848; and the dark inner ring of Saturn (the Crepe Ring) in 1850. Pioneers in astrophotography, the Bonds produced the first recognizable daguerreotype of the Moon and the star Vega in 1850; and the first photographic print of the Moon in 1857. The Observatory became the world's foremost producer of stellar spectra and magnitudes, established an observing station in Peru, and applied mass-production techniques to the analysis of data during the directorship of Edward C. Pickering from 1877 to 1919. Harlow Shapley, director of the Observatory in the 1950s, expanded the scope of the Observatory's galactic research tracking minor planets and asteroids in the Solar System and increasing its telescopic power with the establishment of the Oak Ridge station, also known as the George R. Agassiz Station, in Harvard, Massachusetts. In the 1960s and 1970s, Observatory directors Donald H. Menzel and Leo Goldberg maintained programs in solar and stellar astrophysics and space astronomy. In 1973, the Harvard College Observatory and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (founded in 1890) merged to form the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The Center is a research institute that carries on studies in astronomy, astrophysics, earth and space sciences, and science education.

In 1890, the Harvard College Observatory sent astronomer Solon Irving Bailey to South America to establish an observatory near Arequipa, Peru. Boyden Station, as it was named, was intended to perform photographic surveys of the sky not visible from Cambridge's northern latitude. In 1908, after severe weather rendered observations at Arequipa increasingly difficult, Bailey traveled to South Africa to explore potential new locations for Boyden Station. He eventually recommended a site near Bloemfontein, although a lack of funds delayed the move until 1927. Bloemfontein's first and longtime director was Greek astronomer John S. Paraskevopoulos, who held the post from 1927 until his death in 1951. Harvard stopped its direct financial support of the site in 1966.

The area in which Boyden Station was established was referred to as the Cape Colony at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was a British colony established in 1806 in what is now South Africa. When the Union of South Africa formed in 1910, the area of the Cape Colony became part of the province of the Cape of Good Hope, also called Cape Province.

In October 1931, the Harvard College Observatory established a new observing station on Oak Ridge in Harvard, Massachusetts. The Oak Ridge Observatory's research focused on tracking minor planets and asteroids, the measurement of stars, and the search for planets outside the solar system. In December 1951, Harvard University renamed the station the George R. Agassiz Station in honor of George R. Agassiz (AB 1884) in recognition of his role in planning and constructing the observatory and his lifelong interest in astronomy. Agassiz served on the Harvard University Board of Overseers from 1924 to 1937 and was its president for eight years. In August 1982, the "Agassiz Station" name was transferred to the Harvard Radio Astronomy Station at Fort Davis, Texas, which had been established in 1956 as a separate facility. The Texas site was officially renamed the George R. Agassiz Station of the Harvard College Observatory. As a result, the observatory returned to its original name, becoming known as the Oak Ridge Observatory. Harvard University owned the observatory while Harvard Smithsonian Center staff conducted research. The Oak Ridge Observatory officially closed in August 2005.

The George R. Agassiz Station was established as the Fort Davis Radio Astronomy Station in 1956 by the Harvard College Observatory, with financial assistance from the United States Air Force, and under the leadership of solar radio astronomer Alan Maxwell, in Fort Davis, Texas. The Station focused on radio bursts emanating from flares and sunspots on the solar disk. Construction of a 28-foot radio telescope at the station was completed in 1956 to monitor solar activity and record high intensity radio transmissions from solar flares. In 1961, an 85-foot radio telescope was built and expanded the station’s solar monitoring program by monitoring solar flares and surveying radio sources in the Milky Way. Beginning in March 1972, and continuing throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, the 85-foot radio telescope was implemented in a national Very Long Baseline Interferometry program that collected observations made from telescopes located across the country. In August 1982, the Fort Davis Radio Astronomy Station was officially renamed the George R. Agassiz Station of the Harvard College Observatory.

The Armagh-Dunsink-Harvard (ADH) was a Baker-Schmidt telescope that was jointly owned and operated by the Irish Armagh and Dunsink Observatories and the Harvard College Observatory. The telescope was designed by astronomers Eric Mervyn Lindsay, Harlow Shapley, Bart J. Bok, and James Baker, and manufactured by the Perkin-Elmer Corporation. Construction of the ADH telescope was complete at Boyden Station in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 1950. The ADH telescope was actively used throughout the 1950s through the 1970s for observing large sections of the Southern Milky Way system and Magellanic clouds, use of photographic photometry, and the study of cepheid variable stars.

Bart J. Bok (1906-1983) was a Dutch-American astronomer. While still pursuing his graduate studies at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands in 1929, Bok moved to Cambridge to work at the Harvard College Observatory. That same year, Bok married fellow astronomer Priscilla Fairfield (1896-1975), and the two collaborated closely for the remainder of their lives.

Bok spent almost thirty years at Harvard: he completed his Doctoral dissertation in 1932, then became an assistant professor in 1933; he was promoted to an associate professor in 1939; then became associate director of the Harvard Observatory by 1946 and became a full professor in 1947, when he was appointed to the Robert Wheeler Wilson Chair in Astronomy. In 1950, Bok went to South Africa to set up Boyden Station's Schmidt telescope. He served as Boyden Station's acting superintendent following the death of John S. Paraskevopoulos in 1951.

Bok resigned from Harvard in 1957, when he became director of the Mount Stromlo Observatory in the Australian National University. In 1966, Bok went to the University of Arizona to head the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona, where he remained until his retirement in 1970. Bok died in 1983.

Eric Mervyn Lindsay (1907-1974) was an Irish astronomer. He earned his PhD from Harvard University in 1934, then became chief assistant at Boyden Station, where he remained from 1934 to 1937. While in South Africa, he married American astronomer Sylvia Mussells. Lindsay returned to Ireland in 1937 to become director of the Armagh Observatory. Following John Paraskevopoulos's sudden death in 1951, Lindsay temporarily served as acting director of Boyden Station from 1951 to 1952 before returning to Ireland. Lindsay died of a heart attack in 1974.

Elske van Panhuys Smith (1929-), astronomer and solar physicist, was born on November 9, 1929 in Monte Carlo, Monaco. She came to the United States in 1943 and received her BS in astronomy from Radcliffe College in 1950, her MA in 1951, and her PhD in 1956. She married fellow astronomer Henry J. Smith in 1950, and the two collaborated professionally throughout their lives. Smith aided her husband in his work as superintendent of the Boyden Station of the Harvard College Observatory in South Africa from 1952 to 1954. The couple remained working for the Harvard College Observatory until 1958.

Smith was a member of the faculty at the University of Maryland for more than 15 years and was dean and director of the Center for Environmental Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. She retired in 1995.

Henry ("Harry") J. Smith (1928-1983), astronomer, received his PhD in astronomy from Harvard University in 1955. Smith was superintendent of Boyden Station from 1952 to 1954, following the death of John Paraskevopoulos. From 1955 to 1963, he directed the Solar Activity Patrol at the Sacramento Peak Observatory in New Mexico before leaving for NASA, where he served as Chief of the Solar Physics Program, then Deputy Director of Physics and Astronomy, and finally as Deputy Associate Administrator for Sciences and Applications. From 1976 until his death in 1983, he was a member of the Combat Support Systems Directorate in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Research, Development and Acquisition of the United States Department of the Army. Smith was married to fellow astronomer Elske van Panhuys Smith (1929-), and the two collaborated frequently, including as co-authors of the book, Solar Flares.