While Washington State College had previously had one telescope, mounted on top of Carpenter Hall, it had fallen into disrepair. In 1948 Sidney Hacker of the WSC Mathematics Department put together a proposal for a campus observatory. With most of the funding coming from a gift from George F. Jewett in honor of his father, Richard, the observatory was constructed on the southeast edge of campus. It was dedicated on the evening of May 14, 1953.
The collection consists of correspondence and documentation either created or collected by Sidney G. Hacker of Washington State College’s Department of Mathematics between 1948 and 1956. It deals with the planning and creation of the George Jewett Observatory on the Washington State University campus.
The collection is arranged in subject order. The only real series in the collection is the Correspondence, 1950-1956, and folders in that series are ordered chronologically.
This collection is open and available for research use.
Copyright restrictions apply
[Item Description] Jewett Observatory Records, 1948-1956 (Archives 363)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
The records were donated to the Washington State University Libraries’ Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC) in 1984 by Evelyn Hacker, and retained as MS1984-09.
In 2016, these observatory papers were separated out of Sidney Hacker’s papers, the majority of which dealt with unrelated instructional and personal matters. Hacker had been the first director of the Jewett Observatory. The observatory papers were processed by University Archivist Mark O’English in July, 2016
Material from this and other Hacker donations, primarily instructional, research, and personal in nature, remains in WSU MASC as MSSM.074.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.