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Published 1990 | public
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The Amos Gager Throop Collections: a guide to the papers in the Archives of the California Institute of Technology and the Chicago Historical Society

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PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Without the intervention of Horace Gilbert, this guide would probably not exist. One day early in 1982, Gilbert, professor emeritus of business economics at Caltech, introduced me to Mr. Dan Throop Smith and his wife, Martha Vaughan Smith. Mrs. Smith is a direct descendent of Amos Gager Throop, who founded the school that would become the California Institute of Technology. Her husband and distant cousin, Dan Throop Smith, was a great-grandson of Throop's first cousin. Amos Throop and the history of Caltech were very much on my mind. Recently Alice Stone and I had completed our booklet, "Caltech's Throop Hall," as part of the Institute's ninetieth birthday celebration. I was preparing a talk on Caltech's history to be delivered at the Athenaeum. The meeting with the Smiths seemed especially propitious. Sadly, Mr. Smith died in May, 1982, before the Throop project got under way. Several months later, Mrs. Smith and her brother, David Throop Vaughan, decided to donate their family papers to Caltech and to the Chicago Historical Society. In addition, in recognition of Amos Throop's role as founder of Caltech, Mrs. Smith provided funds to the Institute Archives for the preservation and interpretation of the Throop legacy. She also made possible the beautification of the site where Throop Hall had stood for sixty-five years. In 1983, I made plans to unify the two Throop collections, one at Caltech and one in Chicago, through a microfiche edition. With the cooperation of Archie Motley, curator of manuscripts at the Chicago Historical Society, the Throop papers were microfilmed in Pasadena between 1984 and 1986. The present guide to the microfiche edition, with its ample introductory essay, thus brings to fruition a project that has grown in scope over the course of several years. I owe special thanks to Edward Baum of the Caltech development office, who assisted the Archives and Mrs. Smith in setting up the Throop project. Carol Bugé, then assistant archivist, organized the entire Throop collection, masterminded the microfilming, and began the research for the present guide. Shelley Erwin, assistant archivist, wrote the present introduction and saw the guide through production. Heidi Aspaturian and Paula Hurwitz provided valuable editorial commentary. Noelle Jackson and Lorna Karklins prepared the manuscript for publication. Inquiries about the availability of the Throop microfiche edition should be addressed to: Archivist, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125. Judith R. Goodstein Archivist California Institute of Technology January 1990

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August 19, 2023
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