‘Existence at last seemed very purposive’
On March 26, 1926, at his aunt’s farm in Auburn, Massachusetts, Clark University Physics Professor Robert H. Goddard — who received a master’s degree from Clark in 1910, and a doctorate in 1911 —launched the first liquid-fueled rocket. He had been performing experiments on liquid-fueled rockets since 1921 and successfully created an engine for one in 1923, steadily improving on the design and testing it in static racks in his Clark lab.
But Goddard’s work started much earlier — he first envisioned space travel as a 17-year-old in Worcester, 24 years before those static tests.
Goddard was a compulsive diarist. On October 19, 1899, he noted that he “trimmed [a] large cherry tree” (pictured, right), but he later noted that the day was transformative.
In “Material for an Autobiography” (1927), he wrote:
October 19 was of such significance to Goddard that he christened it “Anniversary Day,” and made some reference to it in his diary almost every year.
Unfortunately, the tree that Goddard climbed in 1899 was lost in a storm in 1938. On that day, in his diary, Goddard wrote, “Tree destroyed. Must go on alone.”
Robert Goddard’s papers, including diaries from 1898 to 1945, are housed in Clark University’s Archives and Special Collections.
