1. Veysey, Laurence R., The Emergence of the American University (Chicago, 1965). For a discussion of the significance of Veysey's contribution to the history of higher education and an in-depth look at issues raised in his book, see Thelin, John R., “Laurence Veysey's The Emergence of the American University,” History of Education Quarterly 27 (Winter 1987): 517–23.Google Scholar

2. Kerr, Clark, The Uses of the University (Cambridge, Mass., 1963). Most studies of the postwar university have been written by administrators or social scientists, not historians. See, for example, Nisbet, Robert A., The Degradation of the Academic Dogma: The University in America, 1945–1970 (New York, 1971); Kidd, Charles V., American Universities and Federal Research (Cambridge, Mass., 1959); Jencks, Christopher and Riesman, David, The Academic Revolution (Garden City, N.Y., 1968); and Rosenzweig, Robert M. with Turlington, Barbara, The Research Universities and Their Patrons (Berkeley, Calif., 1982). Historians of science have contributed significantly to our understanding of the relationship between academic science and the national security state. Of particular relevance to historians of education are the studies of government-sponsored laboratories on campuses such as the University of California at Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and studies considering how sponsorship has affected the production of knowledge. See, for example, Heilbron, John L. and Seidel, Robert W., Lawrence and His Laboratory: A History of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Berkeley, 1989), vol. 1; and Forman, Paul, “Behind Quantum Electronics: National Security as Basis for Physical Research in the United States, 1940–1960,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 18 (1987): 149–229. Most of this work fails to consider the institutional context of the university, however. One exception is Stuart W. Leslie's comparative study of MIT and Stanford, The Cold War and Academic Science (New York, forthcoming).Google Scholar

3. Davis, Paul to Reynolds, Harry B., 31 Mar. 1937, file 14, box 2, ser. 2, Frederick Terman Collection, Stanford University Archives. Stanford, like other universities, suffered financially during the depression. According to the Report to the President of Stanford University, 1939–1940 (3, Stanford University Archives), expendable income from endowment had dropped 1 percent, or about $300,000. “By deferring payments on the building fund, delaying certain amortizations, by penalizing the faculty by salary cuts, and by reducing departmental and other activities, we have been able to go ahead without an actual operating deficit.” See Geiger's, Roger L. To Advance Knowledge: The Growth of American Research Universities, 1900–1940 (New York, 1986), on how leading public and private universities dealt with the impact of the depression. For information on Stanford's difficulty in attracting gift support during the 1930s, and comparisons of Stanford's efforts with those of leading private universities, see Davis to Stanford trustee Edwards, Paul, 7 Dec. 1943, file 4, box 1, ser. 1, Paul Edwards Collection, Stanford University Archives.Google Scholar

4. Embree, Edwin R., “In Order of Their Eminence: An Appraisal of American Universities,” Atlantic Monthly, June 1935, 653–66. For the reaction at Stanford to the Embree article, see Peck, Templeton, “Edwards, Paul C.: From Newsman to Trustees' President,” Sandstone and Tile, Fall 1986, 2–11, available in Stanford University Archives.Google Scholar

5. Benjamin, Harold to Terman, Lewis, 17 Nov. 1939, file 11, box 18, Lewis Terman Collection, Stanford University Archives.Google Scholar

6. Interview by author with former physics professor and department chairman Kirkpatrick, Paul, 26 Apr. 1988. For information on Webster's appointment to Stanford, see file 2, box 43, Wilbur, Ray Lyman Collection, Stanford University Archives.Google Scholar

7. See Seidel, Robert W., “Physics Research in California: The Rise of a Leading Sector in American Physics” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1978), 108–14; and Kargon, Robert W., The Rise of Robert Millikan: Portrait of a Life in American Science (Ithaca, N.Y., 1982).Google Scholar

8. See Heilbron, J. L., Seidel, R. W., and Wheaton, B. R., Lawrence and His Laboratory: Nuclear Science at Berkeley, 1931–1961 (Berkeley, 1981), 6–13. Lacking research funds, Stanford's department was unable to enter this new field of physics. Although twice offered equipment for a cyclotron, Webster was forced to say no, realizing that “unfortunately, there seems to be no chance to finance the rest of a cyclotron.” Webster to Frederick Terman, 2 May 1939, file 15, box 4, ser. 2, Frederick Terman Collection.Google Scholar

9. Webster, to Wilbur, , 4 June 1935, “Notes of the Super Voltage X-Ray Project,” notebook 3, box 1, David Locke Webster Collection, Stanford University Archives. For information on the Rockefeller Foundation's interests in the 1930s, see Geiger, , To Advance Knowledge, 165.Google Scholar

10. See Hansen's, William W. “The Klystron,” file 35, box 4, Hansen, William W. Collection, Stanford University Archives, in which Hansen describes research conditions in the department. In the 1930s, Stanford budgeted between $3,000 and $4,000 annually for faculty research; see Chairman of Stanford Committee on Research, Schultz, Edwin, to Stanford President Donald Tresidder, 11 Mar. 1944, box 127, Wilbur Collection.Google Scholar

11. Davis memo to files, 3 Aug. 1943, file 4, box 1, ser. 1, Edwards Collection. Wilbur's serious concerns about the potential danger of federal funds to private universities were reflected in the meeting he organized as president of the Association of American Universities in 1937 on the relationship of universities to the federal government. See Journal of the Proceedings and Addresses of the Annual Conference of the Association of American Universities, 11–13 Nov. 1937. Wilbur, , who had served as Herbert Hoover's Secretary of the Interior, made a distinction between offering one's expertise to the government and accepting research funds from the government; to him the former implied disinterested public service, the latter, possible political coercion. For a discussion of a few scientists' efforts in the late 1930s to establish federal support for university research, see Kargon, Robert and Hoddes, Elizabeth, “Karl Compton, Isaiah Bowman, and the Politics of Science in the Great Depression,” Isis 76 (Sep. 1985): 301–18; and Pursell, Carroll W. Jr., “A Preface to Government Support of Research and Development: Research Legislation and the National Bureau of Standards, 1935–41,” Technology and Culture 9 (Apr. 1968): 145–64.Google Scholar

12. Varian, Dorothy, The Inventor and the Pilot: Russell and Sigurd Varian (Palo Alto, Calif., 1983). David, Chairman Webster, Locke made theoretical contributions to the project. Leslie, Stuart W. and Hevly, Bruce, “Steeple-Building at Stanford: Electrical Engineering, Physics, and Microwave Research,” Proceedings of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 73 (July 1985): 1171.Google Scholar

13. Webster, to Jackson, Hugh, 12 Mar. 1938, file 7, box 1, Hansen Collection. By the late nineteenth century, Harvard President Eliot, Charles W. had become a firm supporter of scientific research having no “popular quality or commercial utility.” Moreover, the scientists in Harvard's laboratories adhered to the belief that “pure” research was superior to utilitarian studies and that any connection with industrial concerns would be disastrous for their work. See Webster's memo, 27 Apr. 1938, box 1, Webster Collection Supplement, Stanford University Archives; and Hawkins, Hugh, Between Harvard and America: The Educational Leadership of Charles W. Eliot (New York, 1965). For further discussion of the idea of “pure” research, see Veysey, , The Emergence of the American University, 124, 139, 150; and Kevles, Daniel J., The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America (New York, 1979), 41–59. In contrast to Harvard, MIT (where Webster taught for one year) sought interaction with industry. For information on academics' responses to these early cooperative efforts between universities and industry, see Servos, John W., “The Industrial Relations of Science: Chemistry at MIT, 1900–1930,” Isis 71 (Dec. 1980): 531–49; and Carlson, W., “Academic Entrepreneurship and Engineering Education: Dugald C. Jackson and the MIT-GE Cooperative Engineering Course, 1907–1932,” Technology and Culture 29 (July 1988): 536–67.Google Scholar

14. See Galison, Peter, Hevly, Bruce, and Lowen, Rebecca, “Controlling the Monster: Stanford and the Growth of Physics Research, 1935–1962,” in Big Science: The Growth of Large-Scale Research, eds. Galison, Peter and Hevly, Bruce (Stanford, forthcoming); and Lowen, Rebecca, “‘Exploiting a Wonderful Opportunity’: Stanford University, Industry, and the Federal Government, 1937–1965” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1990).Google Scholar

15. Hansen, to Webster, , 23 Oct. 1939, file 14, box 2, Hansen Collection.Google Scholar

16. In December 1939, Webster withdrew from the klystron project, complaining bitterly that “science and patents don't mix any more than oil and water.” See Webster memo to self, 15 Dec. 1939, and Webster, to Wilbur, , 15 Dec. 1939, box 1, Webster Collection Supplement.Google Scholar

17. Bloch, Felix to Hansen, William, 17 Sep. 1942, file 40, box 4, Hansen Collection.Google Scholar

18. Bloch, to Hansen, , 17 Sep. 1942, file 40, box 4, Hansen Collection. Bloch suggested to Hansen that creating a microwave laboratory seemed to be “the natural use [of the royalties] considering the origin of the money.” But the lab was also suggested as “some kind of bait” for Hansen, to ensure that after the war, he returned to Stanford.Google Scholar

19. Webster, to Hansen, , 13 Feb. 1943, file 40 box 4, Hansen Collection.Google Scholar

20. Kirkpatrick, Paul to Webster, , 10, Mar. 1943, box 10, Webster Collection. Although both Kirkpatrick and Bradbury were wary of further departmental involvement with Sperry, unlike Webster, they believed that Hansen, in a sense responsible for the benefactions (in the form of royalties) flowing into the department, should decide how to use the funds. Neither feared, as did Webster, that the work of one member of the department might have implications for the department as a whole. See also Kirkpatrick, to Webster, , 14 Jan. 1943, Bloch, to Webster, , 23 Mar. 1943, and Bradbury, Norris to Kirkpatrick, , 1 Apr. 1943, box 10, Webster Collection. Webster and others at Stanford had long regarded the university's lack of fellowships as the chief reason the university could not attract superior students and thus not improve its reputation. See, for example, the letter from Terman, chairman of electrical engineering, to Dean of Engineering Morris, Samuel, 26 Apr. 1937, file 9, box 3, ser. 2, Terman Collection.Google Scholar

21. Bloch, to Webster, , 23 Mar. 1943, box 10, Webster Collection. It was while at the OSRD-sponsored Radio Research Laboratory in the last years of the war that Bloch gained the requisite knowledge for his later Nobel Prize-winning work on nuclear magnetic resonance.Google Scholar

22. Hansen, to Webster, , 30 Jan. 1939, file 10, box 1, and Hansen's self-evaluation, n.d., file 33, box 3, Hansen Collection. Hansen was also willing to consider employment with industry, contemplating accepting a generous offer in 1940 from physicist E. U. Condon to join him at Westinghouse.Google Scholar

23. Hansen's experience was not unique. See Galison, Peter, “Physics between War and Peace,” and Etzkowitz, Henry, “The Making of an Entrepreneurial University: The Traffic among MIT, Industry, and the Military, 1860–1960,” in Science, Technology, and the Military, Sociology of the Sciences Series, vol. 12, eds. Mendelsohn, E., Smith, M. R., and Weingart, P. (Dordrecht, 1988), 47–86 and 515–40. As Etzkowitz points out, the federally sponsored wartime research laboratories integrated research, development, and production in one organization, bringing scientists into close contact with industry but placing the scientists, rather than industry, in control of the relationship.Google Scholar

24. Hansen, to Bloch, , 5 Nov. 1942, file 40, box 4, Hansen Collection; and Hansen, , “Proposed Micro-Wave Laboratory at Stanford,” 17 Nov. 1943, file 8, box 1, ser. 1, Frederick Terman Collection.Google Scholar

25. See, for example, Terman to Dean of Engineering Morris, Samuel, 25 June 1938, file 9, box 3, ser. 2, Frederick Terman Collection. For a general discussion of prewar engineers' attitudes about industrial support, see Noble, David, America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism (New York, 1977).Google Scholar

26. Terman to Eurich, Alvin, 30 Oct. 1944, file 4, box 1, ser. 1, and Terman, to Skilling, Hugh, acting head of electrical engineering, 16 Oct. 1944, file 11, box 1, ser. 1, Frederick Terman Collection.Google Scholar

27. Hansen, to Tresidder, (draft), 27 Sep. 1944, file 41, box 4, and Webster, to Hansen, , 17 Jan. 1943, file 40, box 4, Hansen Collection; Hansen to President Tresidder, Donald, 27 Sep. 1944, file 10, box 13, Tresidder Collection; and Ginzton, Edward to Cooke, William of Sperry Gyroscope Company, 21 Jan. 1946, file 14, box 8, School of Engineering Collection, Stanford University Archives.Google Scholar

28. Terman, to Davis, Paul, 23 Aug. and 29 Dec. 1943, file 2, box 1, ser. 1, Terman Collection.Google Scholar

29. “The unfortunate result” of Webster's appeal to the president, Bloch wrote to Hansen, was that “a discussion about the pros and cons [of the laboratory] is now in full swing.” Bloch, to Hansen, , 14 Feb. 1943, file 40, box 4, Hansen Collection.Google Scholar

30. For information on the search for a new president of Stanford, see file 1, box 38, Donald Tresidder Collection, Stanford University Archives. Bloch, to Hansen, , 14 Feb. 1943, file 40, box 4, Hansen Collection.Google Scholar

31. For a fuller elaboration of this topic, see Lowen, , “‘Exploiting a Wonderful Opportunity’,” 10–49.Google Scholar

32. Davis, to Wilbur, , 1 Jan. 1943, file 7, box 38, Tresidder Collection; and Davis, to Tresidder, , 20 Nov. 1942, box 125, Wilbur Collection; Tresidder, to Edwards, Paul, chairman of Stanford's Board of Trustees, 2 Mar. 1944, file 3, box 2, ser. 2, Edwards Collection; Davis, to Terman, , 9 Aug. 1943, file 2, box 1, ser. 1, Terman Collection.Google Scholar

33. Hansen, , “Proposed Micro-Wave Laboratory at Stanford,” 17 Nov. 1943, file 8, box 1, ser. 1, Terman Collection; Tresidder to Hansen, 16 Jan. 1945, file 41, box 4, Hansen Collection; Terman, to Tresidder, , 22 Dec. 1944, file 13, box 1, ser. 1, Terman Collection; and Webster to Kirkpatrick, 22 Feb. 1945, box 10, Webster Collection.Google Scholar

34. Edward Ginzton to William Cooke of Sperry Gyroscope Company, 21 Jan. 1946, file 14, box 8, School of Engineering Collection.Google Scholar

35. Webster, to Kirkpatrick, , 19 Apr. 1945, box 10, Webster Collection. Webster viewed “with alarm any proposal to appoint an assistant professor who won't carry his share of the teaching,” believing this would give him an unfair advantage in the competition for promotions—largely based on research output—with those engaged in both research and undergraduate teaching.Google Scholar

36. Webster, to Kirkpatrick, , 20 Dec. 1947, box 10, Webster Collection; and Bloch, , Hansen, , and Staub, Hans H. to Kirkpatrick, , 10 Feb. 1947, file 42, box 4, Hansen Collection.Google Scholar

37. Kirkpatrick, to Webster, , 14 Apr. 1945, box 10, Webster Collection; Kirkpatrick, to Webster, 2 May 1945, file 41, box 4, Hansen Collection.Google Scholar

38. Bloch, to Eurich, Alvin (confidential), 9 July 1947, file 42, box 4, Hansen Collection.Google Scholar

39. Kirkpatrick, , “Autobiography” (unpublished, 1971), Stanford University Archives.Google Scholar

40. During the war, Tresidder corresponded with Stanford geologist Waters, Aaron C., serving with the U.S. Geological Survey, about ways to encourage support from the oil industry. They agreed that the department needed to begin emphasizing petroleum geology, and that if it hired a man from the oil industry as chairman, then the geology faculty could stand with “our palms outstretched for the payoff.” See Waters, to Hoots, Harold of Richfield Oil, n.d., and Waters, to Tresidder, , 23 Nov. 1944, file 2, box 24, Tresidder Collection.Google Scholar

41. See Tresidder memo on his meeting with Heald, Henry, Oct. 1944, file 6, box 26, Tresidder Collection. See also Eurich, Alvin, “A Stanford Motivation,” in SRI: The Founding Years: A Significant Step at the Golden Time, by Gibson, Weldon B. (Los Altos, Calif., 1980), 171–72, regarding Eurich and Tresidder's aims in establishing SRI.Google Scholar

42. See “Affirmation of Purpose of American Universities,” a petition drawn up by eight Stanford and seven Berkeley professors on 20 June 1945, box 10, Webster Collection.Google Scholar

43. Blackwelder notes to self, n.d., box 1, Blackwelder Collection, Hoover Institute of War, Revolution and Peace Archives, Stanford University. The main source of information about this meeting comes from the memo of an administrative “spy” in attendance. See Stephens to Tresidder, 11 Apr. 1946, file 4, box 37, Tresidder Collection.Google Scholar

44. According to Stephens, over half of the sixty faculty members at the meeting were “old.” Of the eight original signers of the petition, four became emeritus between 1945 and 1947, one retired in 1949. Two others retired six years after the controversy; one remained at Stanford until 1958.Google Scholar

45. See Veysey, , The Emergence of the American University, 302–16 (on the rise of university administration), and 384–417, especially 388–89 (on faculty dissent).Google Scholar

46. See Pindar, Fred to Parks, George, acting dean of graduate studies, 29 Dec. 1950, box 24, Wallace, J. Sterling Collection, Stanford University Archives. For Sperry's yearly contributions to microwave research at Stanford between 1937–38 and 1944–45, see Owen, Lillian to Eurich, , 4 Jan. 1945, file 10, box 13, Tresidder Collection. See box 52, Sterling Collection, for the annual gifts and royalties contributed by Sperry between 1940 and 1952.Google Scholar

47. See Ginzton, and Pindar, to President Sterling, 8 Jan. 1952, box 18, Sterling Collection, for information on funding for the microwave laboratory. See Collection 1103, Stanford University Archives, for departmental budget figures.Google Scholar

48. Weiner, Norbert, “A Scientist Rebels,” Atlantic Monthly, Jan. 1947, 46; Terman to Tresidder, 25 Apr. 1947, file 2, box 27 Tresidder Collection.Google Scholar

49. By late 1947, SRI had twelve active contracts totaling $232,000, but the research was largely routine and of little interest to Stanford's faculty. Moreover, little of it was sponsored by industry, Tresidder's original hope; 70 percent of the contract revenue came from the federal government. By the end of 1948, Stanford had sunk $369,000 into the institute, but SRI was running a deficit of about $180,000/year. As continuing efforts to attract industrial support failed, SRI's Board of Trustees considered disbanding the institute. See Gibson, , SRI: The Founding Years, 123; and Gibson, , SRI: The Take-Off Days: The Right Moves at the Right Times (Los Altos, Calif., 1986), 28–37.Google Scholar

50. For information on Stanford's postwar negotiations with Sperry, , see file 16, box 8, School of Engineering Collection. Sperry discontinued support for klystron-related research in 1951.Google Scholar

51. To encourage academic scientists to accept Office of Naval Research funding, the ONR funded “pure” research as well as projects of military relevance, endeavored to keep to a minimum bureaucratic red tape and, unlike industry, placed few limits on publication and secrecy. See Kevles, , The Physicists, 354–56.Google Scholar

52. Blackwelder notes to self, n.d., box I, Blackwelder Collection.Google Scholar