The David and Clara Shoemaker Papers document the Shoemakers' professional output as noted x-ray crystallographers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Oregon State University. The collection includes correspondence, research notebooks and scholarly manuscripts, among other material types. David Shoemaker, a former student of Linus Pauling, served as chair of the OSU Chemistry department from 1970-1981.
Scope and Content Notes
The Collection contains approximately 39 linear feet (78 boxes) of material that has been organized into seven series. The bulk of the collection consists of personal correspondence, organizational records and research notebooks, kept both by the Shoemakers and by their many graduate students. The Shoemakers' long-standing interest in the study of transition metals is reflected in the collection's manuscripts and publications holdings, as are David Shoemaker's research on the concept of "hydrosmoelectric power." David Shoemaker's eleven years as chair of the Oregon State University chemistry department are also closely detailed in the three boxes of organizational records extant from that time. Small collections of books, photographs and scientific artifacts round out the collection.
Biographical / Historical Notes
David Powell Shoemaker (1920-1995) was born in Kooskia, Idaho on 12 May 1920, received a from Reed College in 1942 and his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1947, both in chemistry. In 1947 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship which he spent at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen. He returned to Caltech as a senior research fellow (1948-1951) before going to MIT as an assistant professor. He moved to Corvallis in 1970 as chairman of the Chemistry Department at Oregon State University and retired in 1984. During his time as chairman (1970-1981) he had primary responsibility for the construction of the Gilbert Hall Addition, a teaching facility.
Shoemaker's primary research was in x-ray crystallography. He and his wife, Clara, determined the structures of complex transition-metal phases, research begun with the determination of the structure of the sigma phase at Pauling’s laboratory at Caltech.
While at MIT Shoemaker also worked in the structure of commercially important zeolites. He co-authored a laboratory text (with Carl W. Garland, Jeffrey I. Sternfeld and later Joseph W. Nibler), Experiments in Physical Chemistry (1962), now in its sixth edition. Among his professional services were 15 years on the United States National Committee for Crystallography (1969), chairman of the American Crystallographic Association (1970), member of the executive committee of the International Union of Crystallography (1972-78) and regional editor of Acta Crystallographica.
David Shoemaker died in 1995.
Arrangement
The Shoemaker Papers have been organized into seven series. Broadly speaking, the contents of each series have been arranged chronologically, although many items in Series 4 and Series 7 are arranged alphabetically.
