Yerkes Archives Now at SCRC

The Special Collections Research Center has completed the transfer of more than 500 linear feet of historical records from Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin.  Opened in 1897, Yerkes was a center of University of Chicago astronomical and astrophysical research for more than a century.  Its 40-inch refracting telescope, which was first exhibited at the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, is still in operation today and retains its original mount and mechanical systems.

The archival records of Yerkes Observatory document the scientific work of many notable astronomers associated with Yerkes, including George E. Hale, Edwin B. Frost, John A. Parkhurst, Edward E. Barnard, Edwin Hubble, George Van Biesbroeck, Otto Struve, Bengt Strőmgren, S. Chandrasekhar, William W. Morgan, and Gerard P. Kuiper.  In addition, Yerkes observation log books, a set of hundreds of chronologically arranged handwritten volumes, record the systematic observations of Yerkes astronomers from the 1890s onward.

Among the most significant visual materials in the Yerkes collection are more than 4,800 documentary photographs.  These depict the construction of the main observatory building and the installation of instruments, the work of astronomers and staff, astronomical expeditions to sites including Sumatra and Catalina Island, and important visitors, among them Albert Einstein.

As archival processing of the Yerkes historical records is completed, finding aids will be made available online through the Archives and Manuscripts Finding Aids database.  In addition, with funds from the John Crerar Foundation, the Library has launched an initiative to digitize 2,000 glass-plate photographs from Yerkes and add them to the Archival Photofiles web site, a digital collection that already contains several hundred images documenting to the founding and history of Yerkes Observatory.