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Abstract:
The father or modern rocketry and a physicist (1882-1945). It
includes his notebooks, patents, and correspondence. Also included are his wife's papers
and the information that was gathered by his first biographer, Milton Lehman.
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Scope and Contents
Dr. Robert H. Goddard was a member of the Clark Physics Department for 29
years. Foremost American pioneer of rocket research, he laid the technical and
theoretical foundations for many of the developments in long-range rockets, missiles,
satellites and space flight, which collectively put us into the Space Age.
The original deposit of Goddard papers, concerning Dr. Goddard's life and
work, was given to Clark University by Mrs. Goddard in 1964, but these materials
were not brought to campus until the Goddard Library was opened in May of 1969.
Additional Goddard materials, including large quantities of photographs and most of
Mrs. Goddard's working files were transferred, with the approval of the Trustee of the
Goddard Estate, on October 23, 1978. A smaller portion, consisting of additional
photographs and a card index to the patents (with cross-references), came to Clark on
February 20, 1979. Included in the collection also are files from the office of Patent
Attorney, Charles T. Hawley, following the progress of Dr. Goddard's patent
applications. These files overlap with Dr. Goddard's records of the applications. The
collection includes original paintings by Dr. Goddard.
In the Goddard Collection are original manuscripts, documents, and copies of
manuscripts and documents. In some cases, copies have been made of original
documents in other collections. In other instances, there are copies of originals that
have been lost or destroyed. We have also copied Dr. Goddard's carbons of his
correspondence onto acid-free permalife paper. The carbon copies are in a separate
subseries. (In The Esther C. Goddard Papers photocopies have been made of some of
her correspondence as well. There too the photocopied carbons are in separate
subseries.)
The correspondence files had lost their original arrangement through
reorganization by Mrs. Goddard, as she worked on the three volumes of excerpts of
her husband's papers, published in 1970. Large segments were grouped into her
categories, that is, "papers used" and "papers omitted". Earlier researchers also
apparently numbered documents to suit their purposes. To overcome the limitations of
these (idiosyncratic suited) arrangements, the correspondence was refiled
chronologically within three groups--"Letters To", "Letters From", and "Letters About
(including miscellaneous)". In order to compensate for the temporary lack of an in-
house card catalog index (currently in progress), we have listed the individual
correspondents alphabetically under the appropriate folders.
Despite the comprehensiveness of the Collection, gaps exist. From Dr.
Goddard's "Autobiographical Statement" of July 1927, we have:
"Accordingly, one day [1904] I gathered all the notes I could
conveniently find and burned them in the little old-fashioned wood
stove in the dining room."
Also, until his marriage in 1924, and the undertaking of secretarial duties by Mrs.
Goddard, Dr. Goddard's correspondence files are incomplete. Moreover, a fire in the
office of Dr. Goddard's patent attorney, Charles T. Hawley, destroyed most of the
early patent case material. And from the Preface to bound Volume XXIII, transcribed
by Mrs. Goddard and entitled "Progress Reports to Navy Department, 1941-1945", we
learn from her note of March 31, 1956:
"This volume contains photostatic copies of the Progress Reports
Dr. Robert H. Goddard submitted to the Army Air Corps from
December 1941 to July 1942, and to the Navy Department from
November 1942 to May 1945. Four reports in late 1942 are missing.
"Dr. Goddard's carbon copies of the Navy reports disappeared
shortly after his death from his files at the Curtiss-Wright Corporation
at Caldwell, NJ, making it necessary for me to ask the cooperation of
the Navy Department in supplying photostatic copies as they were
declassified. All these reports were kindly sent, except those submitted
in December 1941 and 1942 (Contract No. N03-91391), which were
missing from the Navy files. During the first half of 1942, however,
progress reports under a concurrent contract (No. 42-7280) with the
Army Air Corps were submitted to Wright Field, and covered, in
the main, the same development as that carried on for the Navy
Department. These reports to the Army have therefore been copied
and are inserted before the photostated Navy reports."
Additional Robert Goddard materials are held in the Clark University Archives
and not listed here. These include correspondence in the G. Stanley Hall Papers,
Wallace W. Atwood Papers and Physics Department records, Physics Colloquium
lecture notebooks, material on the Clark University Radio Club, and newspaper
clippings concerning Goddard and the University of his time. In addition, Dr. Percy
Roope's papers are made up of interviews about Dr. Goddard. Some papers of his
assistant Larry Mansur are held in the Bedford Public Library.
Mrs. Goddard was her husband's constant companion in rocket research, his
assistant, secretary, photographer, and motion picture filmer. After her husband's death, she was the
principal interpreter of her husband's work, an indefatigable speaker and correspondent
about Robert Goddard, rocketry, and space, and collector and editor of her husband's
papers. For the period between his death, in 1945, and her own in 1982, her papers
(page 71) serve as a barometer of interest in the space age, documenting school
children's inquiries, public ceremonies, scholarly interests, and recognition of the
historic research conducted by her husband.
The Milton Lehman Papers
Milton Lehman (1917-1966) was a free-lance writer, contributing about 250
articles to national magazines such as Saturday Evening Post, Life, Reader's Digest,
McCall's, Look, The York Times, and other periodicals, books and newspapers. He
wrote a biography of Robert H. Goddard that was published in 1963. He was helped
throughout the seven year writing process by Esther C. Goddard, Goddard's wife, who
supplied him with transcripts of Goddard's notes, notebooks, diaries, reports and
correspondence and with photographs of his work as well as her own recollections.
Lehman interviewed people from all parts of Goddard's life; his childhood, schooling,
early Clark teaching career, Roswell experiments and final years consulting to the Navy.
He also obtained copies of the correspondence between the Smithsonian Institution and
Goddard from the Smithsonian's archives.
In 1997 Lehman's widow sent his files to Clark University. The papers,
comprising three linear feet, consist of typescripts from the tapes of his many interviews,
copies of Goddard's papers and correspondence, clippings, and lists and commentary
supplied by Esther C. Goddard. For instance, she gave him typed excerpts from
Goddard's letters to her which don't appear in the Goddard papers. The papers are
arranged in Lehman's order in which he created a number to different subject
breakdowns, B-5 for bibliography, B-20 for letters, B-25 for interviews, etc. As well as
this subject breakdown, Lehman also had a chronological category for the years from
1912 to 1940 (B-30). In these folders he was apt to keep copies of Goddard's
correspondence, transcripts from his diaries, clippings, parts of his interviews, or
anything that seemed particularly pertinent to those years. At the time that the tapes of his
interviews were transcribed, multiple copies were made and so interview material can be
found not only in the interview section but also in the more general files such as
"concepts," background," or "rockets."
Additional correspondence between Milton Lehman and Esther Goddard can be
found in Mrs. Goddard's papers.
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