Title	Finding aid for Papers of Frederic Eugene Wright, 1924-1961.
Creator	Wright, F. E. (Frederic Eugene), 1877-1953.
Extent	865 items. 6 boxes, plus 3 oversize folders.
Biographical Note	Frederic Eugene Wright (1877-1953) was an eminent optician and geophysicist. His various specialties included the physical features of the surface of the moon, and in 1925, he was appointed the chair of the "Committee on Study of Surface Feature of Moon" of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. In addition to Wright, the committee consisted of W. S. Adams and F. G. Pease (Mt. Wilson Observatory), A. L. Day (Geophysical Laboratory of the Institution), John P. Buwalda and Paul S. Epstein (California Institute of Technology), and W. W. Campbell (Lick Observatory). Wright remained at the Carnegie Institution until his retirement in 1944. At the time of his death, he was considered the foremost authority on the Moon.
Scope and Content	The collection contains material ranging from correspondence to various types of research materials to clippings and reprints of articles of newspapers, magazines, and academic journals. The majority of the collection deals with the history of science and Wright's research of the physical features of the moon. The collection is composed of four sections in accordance with the types of sources: correspondence, manuscripts, research materials, and ephemera. The correspondence is contained in Box 1, while the manuscripts are housed in Boxes 1 and 2. Research materials occupy Boxes 2-5, divided into five sub-sections: unbound research materials, research materials in folders, bound research materials, photographs, and negatives. The Ephemera section is contained in Boxes 5 and 6. The items in each section and sub-section are placed in chronological order. Correspondence indicates the ways in which Wright advanced the research project of the Committee on Study of Surface Feature of Moon as well as in which he shaped his ideas and conducted his research in relation to other scholars; he asked other scholars research questions and was asked by them. Wright regularly corresponded with administrators at the Carnegie Institution, such as W. M. Gilbert and John Merriam, and the committee members in California, updating each other on the project. Also he communicated with other scholars in the field including R. A. Daly at Harvard, W. H. Pickering at an observatory in Jamaica, George Hale at the California Institute of Technology, Harlow Shapley at the Harvard College Observatory, C. P. Oliver at the University of Pennsylvania, Ernest Brown at Yale, Jesse L. Greenstein at the Harvard College Observatory, Otto Struve at the University of California, Berkeley, and Henry Norris Russell at Princeton. Manuscripts and research materials tell us exactly what Wright thought and did in terms of his research project. Manuscripts include the reports of the committee and drafts of talks he gave to various audiences. Research materials are a nice collection of research data (graphs and tables), research notes, and visual sources such as photographs and negatives. The ephemera section also contributes to tracing the trajectory of Wright's ideas, composed of clippings of articles regarding the moon from newspapers and magazines and reprints of his own published papers.
Notes	All inquiries about this collection should be directed to the Dibner Senior Curator, History of Science, Medicine & Technology.
Date	1924-1961.
Provenance	Deposit, Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington Collection, 1988. Approximately fifty additional separate collections form the Mount Wilson Papers of the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and are available for research in the Manuscripts Department of the Huntington Library.
Subject	Wright, F. E. (Frederic Eugene), 1877-1953 -- Archives. Carnegie Institution of Washington. Mount Wilson Observatory. Committee on Study of the Surface Features of the Moon. Mount Wilson Observatory -- History -- Sources. Astronomers -- Correspondence. Astronomical observatories -- California -- Wilson, Mount (Mountain) Astronomy -- United States -- History -- 20th century -- Sources. Astronomy -- Research. Lunar geology. Moon. Moon -- Photographs. Moon -- Surface.
Form/Genre	Letters (correspondence) 20th century. (aat) Photographs 20th century. (aat) Research (document genres) 20th century. (aat)
Contributors	Adams, Walter S. (Walter Sydney), 1876-1956. Brown, Ernest W. (Ernest William), 1866-1938. Daly, Reginald Aldworth, 1871-1957. Greenstein, Jesse L. (Jesse Leonard), 1909-2002. Hale, George Ellery, 1868-1938. Merriam, John C. (John Campbell), 1869-1945. Oliver, Charles P. Pickering, William H. (William Henry), b. 1858. Russell, Henry Norris, 1877-1957. Shapley, Harlow, 1885-1972. Struve, Otto, 1897-1963. Mount Wilson Observatory. Committee on Study of the Surface Features of the Moon.
Department	Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery. Manuscripts Department.
Call Number	mssWright papers
Physical Collection	Frederick Eugene Wright Papers.
Digital Collection	Finding Aids, Huntington Digital Library
Physical Description	7 p.
Digitization Specifications	Original finding aid converted into PDF document by B. Black, 2011-12-15.
Date Digital	2011-12-15.
DCMI Type	text
Digital Format	pdf
Original Finding Aid	Finding aid prepared by Go Oyagi, May 6, 2011.
Citation Information	Finding aid for Frederick Eugene Wright Papers, Huntington Digital Library, San Marino, California.
Restrictions	Images in this collection are for scholarly research; please review the Huntington Library's copyright information: http://cdm16003.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/about. For purchasing images for publication please review our permission to publish policy: http://www.huntington.org/huntingtonlibrary.aspx?id=590.
Cataloging Notes	Forms part of: The Mount Wilson Papers of the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.