[Posted by Peter Rawson, Associate Curator of Archives & MSS]

As mentioned in a previous post, we received a rich set of material from Jon Reynolds last fall.  Mr.  Reynolds has sent us more material over the last year and we are integrating it into the collection.  Michelle Sigiel, an archives intern from Simmons College has come across a set of approximately 75 slides depicting Vietnam in 1963.  These images give us a fascinating look into the American war in Vietnam.

Montagnards, also known as “The Degar” are indigenous people of the Central Highlands of Vietnam.  Many Degars worked with American Special Forces and were a critical part of the American military effort.

We are in the process of making this collection available for research and plan to complete this phase late this term.

The first two images picture Montagnards. Pic 3 is of a US plane flying over South Vietneam; pic 4 is of South Vietnamese troops; pic 5 is of army helicopters, and the final pic is of Vietnamese children.

A recent gift to the archives is what appears to be an early, self-published “edition” (ca. 1930s) of H. M. Dadourian’s Introduction to Analytic Geometry and the Calculus. We have a copy of a photo-reduced (“Lithoprinted”) typescript, slightly altered and dated 1947, as well as a copy of the 1949 edition published the Ronald Press (New York).

Dadourian, born in Turkish Armenia in 1878, emigrated to the United States in 1900, took three degrees at Yale and then taught physics there for 10 years, served as an aeronautical engineer at Princeton during WWI and a few years after (1917-23), and was appointed Seabury professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Trinity College from 1923–1949. He retired in 1949 but remained very active—supporting our intervention during WWII to prevent Germany from conquering Great Britain, and opposing nuclear testing, the development of nuclear weapons, and our involvement in Vietnam. He died in West Hartford in 1974.

“Among his most highly regarded courses at Trinity was one in advanced physics in which classical mechanics were studied by means of the mathematics of the 17^th and 18^th centuries. The mathematics were used as a tool to understand physical principles which in turn were reduced in large measure to a single principle called The Action Principle. Most of the course was devoted to furthering understanding of this principle by using it to solve problems. The course demonstrated that a great deal could be learned about nature from detailed and general examination of relatively simple problems, and that hypotheses could be proved wrong, although not right, without actual experiments. In his teaching, Dadourian emphasized the importance of stating a problem accurately in terms simple enough to permit mathematical translation.”

[From volume 58 of the National Cyclopedia of American Biography]

The Watkinson is very pleased to announce the gift of the professional papers and working library of CT-based architect Roger Clarke (1936-2011). Clarke was born in England (Castleford, Yorkshire), studied at Liverpool University, apprenticed in Germany, worked in London for several firms, and in 1963 met Marjorie Donnelly, an American who was in England making her way back from the Peace Corps in the Philippines as part of the first wave of volunteers sent by JFK. They hit it off and wrote to each other but time and distance took its toll. In 1967 Clarke took a job in Philadelphia, and later moved to New York City, where he worked for two prestigious firms, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Edward Larabee Barnes. Marjorie was working as a book editor in New York where they reunited and were married. They moved to Collinsville, CT in 1972. He worked for Henry Shadler in West Hartford, then opened a firm in Collinsville in 1974 with architect Richard Swibold. They were at the forefront of the “green” movement in the 1970s, which was in its infancy, designing houses with passive solar heating systems and other efficiencies. Through his work on The Old State House, Clarke began to develop his deep interest and enthusiasm  for historic preservation.  He worked on properties such as the Charter Oak Temple (the state’s first synagogue), Gillette Castle, the mansion at Harkness Memorial State Park, the Butler-McCook House in Hartford, the Asylum Hill Congregational Church, and dozens of other projects.

The donor of the collection is Marjorie Clarke, and it will be processed for research as soon as possible.