The Drawings of Russell W. PorterPorter, Russell W. (2004) The Drawings of Russell W. Porter. Finding Aids Online, California Institute of Technology Archives, Pasadena, California. Full text available as:
AbstractRUSSELL W. PORTER was born in Springfield, Vermont in 1871 and was educated in architecture at MIT. His passion for the Artic sent him on six expeditions, on one of which--the Fiala-Ziegler expedition--he was marooned for two years. Having learned celestial navigation and timekeeping in the Arctic, Porter later became closely involved in the amateur telescope-makers movement headquartered in Springfield. In 1928 he was recruited by the famous solar astronomer G. E. Hale to work on design aspects of the 200-inch Palomar telescope and became an employee of Caltech in Pasadena. Always an avid draftsman, Porter created a multitude of architectural sketches and designs at Caltech, not all of which were realized in three dimensions. He was responsible for the designs for three campus buildings related to work on the 200-inch telescope (machine shop, astrophysics lab, optical shop). During work on the Palomar telescope he perfected his "cutaway" drawing technique, which during World War II put him in demand by the military for ordnance design. The collection includes sketches, drawings, photographs, reproductions and a few documents--all from Porter's Caltech period.
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