Guide to the Henry Guerlac Papers,
1922-1981

Henry Edward Guerlac (1910-1982) graduated from Cornell University in 1932, received a master's degree in biochemistry from Cornell in 1933, and a doctorate in European history from Harvard University in 1941. Before joining the Cornell faculty in 1946, he taught at Harvard and the University of Wisconsin, and for three years was the historian for the Radiation Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1964, he was named Goldwin Smith Professor of the History of Science and in 1970 he became director of the Society for the Humanities at Cornell. Guerlac was awarded the George Sarton Medal by the History of Science Society in 1973, was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1978, and in 1982 was named Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur by the French government.

Guerlac's books include Science in Western Civilization, Newton on the Continent, and Lavoisier: The Crucial Year, for which he received the Pfizer Prize in 1959. At the time of his death Professor Guerlac was completing an annotated edition of Newton's Opticks, which was first published in 1704.

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.