Dibner Autographed Documents and First Day Covers collection

This collection contains 74 items, chiefly documents including letters, postcards, typescripts, photographs, handwritten notes, and blank cards, autographed by leading figures in the sciences, including multiple Nobel Prize winners; several documents contain multiple signatures. The collection also includes autographed 20 first day covers, mostly stamps dedicated to science-related themes such as nuclear energy, communications, electronics, space exploration, and naval aviation; dates of these items range from 1948-1973.

Signatures on various types of documents include those of British explorer John Franklin (1786-1847); Joseph Henry (1797-1878), first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; American medical physicist Rosalyn S. Yalow (1921-2011); American medical researcher Albert B. Sabin (1906-1993); polar explorer Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922); and American president Herbert Hoover (1874-1964). Many of the autographed letters are addressed to R. Frederick Allen of Lewiston, Maine, often in response to birthday greetings or other communications from Allen, and several autographed items are accompanied by information about the signers in the form of clippings or typed or handwritten annotations.

The first day covers commemorate developments and events including the Atoms for Peace campaign (initiated in 1953) and the Atomic Energy Act (1962); the launch of Echo I, the world's first communications satellite, in 1960; the dedication of the Palomar Mountain Observatory, Palomar Mountain, California, in 1948; and various other innovations and innovators. Signatures on first day covers include those of Edward Teller (1908-2003), on Atoms for Peace covers; Wernher von Braun (1912-1977), on a cover featuring Echo I (1960); J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967), on a cover marking the Atomic Energy Act (1962); Jonas Salk (1914-1995), on a cover honoring those battling polio (1957); and Donald W. Douglas (1892-1981), on two covers celebrating the 50th anniversary of naval aviation (1961).