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[Identification of item, box and file number], Papers of Charles Christian Lauritsen. Archives, California Institute of Technology.
Gift of the Lauritsen family in
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Charles Christian Lauritsen, known to his colleagues as Charlie or C. C., was born in Holstebro, Denmark in 1892 and educated at the Odense Technical School. During World War I, although Denmark officially remained neutral, Lauritsen chose to leave Europe for the United States, where he and his wife, the former Sigrid Henriksen, and son Tommy first settled in Florida. After some years of working at engineering and design jobs around the country, Lauritsen began his formal study of physics after hearing a talk by Robert A. Millikan, Caltech's president. Enrolling at Caltech in 1927, he received his PhD in 1929 and was appointed to the physics faculty in 1930.
Charlie Lauritsen spent his entire academic career at Caltech. Beginning with his work with Millikan on the cold-emission effect (the subject of his dissertation), he went on to construct with R. D. Bennett a high-voltage X-ray tube that operated initially at 750 and later at one million volts. Though designed originally to study physical problems, the "Hi Volts" lab was also used for radiation therapy for cancer patients. In 1931 Millikan established the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory with funds from the cornflakes magnate, W. K. Kellogg. From this point on, the Kellogg Laboratory would be the scene of major breakthroughs in the new science of nuclear physics. From the first artificial production of neutrons with a positive ion accelerator, the team of Lauritsen, H. R. Crane, W. A. Fowler, T. Lauritsen (son of Charles) and many others created a world-renowned center for the study of nuclear reactions.
During World War II, Lauritsen was called to Washington to head up research into weapons design. He soon transferred his project, Section L (L for Lauritsen) of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), to Pasadena, where he drew on the Kellogg team plus numerous other Caltech scientists and engineers for the design and development of combat rockets. By late 1944, after over one million rockets had been produced for the war effort, Lauritsen decided to turn the project over to the navy, and he was instrumental in the founding of the Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS) at Inyokern, California (today the China Lake Naval Weapons Center). Thereafter Lauritsen turned his efforts to the development of the atomic bomb. After the war, he continued to advise the U.S. government on strategic weapons and on defense policy, eventually serving on over sixty committees, panels and advisory groups.
Much honored for his wartime and scientific work, Lauritsen retired from Caltech in 1962. He died after a long battle with cancer in April, 1968.
The main body of the papers of Charles Christian Lauritsen were donated to the Caltech Archives in 1974 by the Lauritsen family. They have been organized to accord as closely as possible with his original filing scheme. In most cases original file folder names have been retained. The collection includes research notes and data, correspondence both personal and official, reprints, photographs, and miscellaneous material relative to his work at the California Institute of Technology, and for private organizations and government agencies.
The collection has been divided into nine sections, plus supplements. The correspondence is the largest portion and covers a period of over thirty years. However, there was originally none extant for the period of World War II and very little from the 1930s (see below on Supplements). The correspondence section is in chronological order, and the correspondents are listed on the outside of each folder. A name index to correspondence has been created and appears at the end of the collection.
The organizations and corporations section is the second largest and covers Lauritsen's consulting work and professional activities. Since a great deal of his government work was classified, very little remains in the collection to document the extent of his involvement with high-level decision- making, both military and civilian.
The remaining seven sections, though small, provide some insight into Lauritsen's scientific work at Caltech and into his personal life. Section IX, Reprints and Manuscripts, has been supplemented with notebooks from Lauritsen's graduate student days at Caltech that were found in the William A. Fowler Papers in 1997. Other supplementary material, received beginning in May 1981, is largely miscellaneous. Of note is a second transfer of material from the Fowler Papers of correspondence and documents that partially fill the gap in the original collection for the 1930s and 1940s (transferred July 1997).
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection.
Researchers should also consult the following related collections and documents in the Caltech Archives: The Papers of Thomas Lauritsen; the Papers of William A. Fowler (for extensive material on the World War II rocket project and on the activities of the Kellogg Laboratory); the oral histories of Charles C. Lauritsen conducted by A. B. Christman for the Naval Ordnance Test Station (April 1966) and by Charles Weiner for the American Institute of Physics (June 1966); the oral history and supplemental oral history by William A. Fowler; and the oral history concerning the Lauritsen family by Margaret Lauritsen Leighton.