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Finding Aids to Personal Papers and Special Collections in the Smithsonian Institution Archives

Record Unit 7240

Rasetti, Franco, 1901-2001

Franco Rasetti Papers, 1944-1965 and undated

Repository:Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington, D.C. Contact us at osiaref@si.edu.
Creator:Rasetti, Franco, 1901-2001
Title:Franco Rasetti Papers
Dates:1944-1965 and undated
Quantity:0.75 cu. ft. (1 document box) (1 half document box)
Collection:Record Unit 7240
Language of Materials:English
Summary:

These papers consist of field notebooks and notes; a draft of a publication; and photographs of geologic formations.

Historical Note

Franco Dino Rasetti (1901-2001) was born in Castiglione del Lago, Italy. He received his doctorate in physics from the University of Pisa, 1923, and honorary degrees from Laval University, Ph.D., 1948, and the University of Glasgow, LL.D., 1957. He came to the United States in 1947 and became a naturalized citizen in 1952. In the early 1970s he returned to Italy.

Rasetti was an Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Florence, 1923-1926, and the University of Rome, 1927-1930. He then became Professor of Physics at Rome, 1931-1938; Laval University, 1939-1947; and Johns Hopkins University, 1947-1970.

In addition to his academic appointments, Rasetti was a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow at the California Institute of Technology, 1928-1929; a fellow at Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, 1931-1932; a Research Associate at Columbia University, 1936; a Visiting Professor at the University of Miami, 1958-1959; a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow, 1959; and a Consultant for the National Committee on Nuclear Research at Rome, 1959.

Although Rasetti was a nuclear physicist, his avocation was paleobiology with an emphasis on Cambrian Rockies. From 1964 to 1967, Rasetti was an Honorary Research Associate in Invertebrate Paleontology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. He was a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and the Paleontological Society and received the National Academy of Science's Walcott Medal in 1952.

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Descriptive Entry

These papers consist of field notebooks and notes; a draft of a publication; and photographs of geologic formations.

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Preferred Citation

Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 7240, Franco Rasetti Papers

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Container List

Series 1

Notebooks and Notes, 1947-1965 and undated. Arranged Chronologically.

This series consists of notes and field notebooks concerning species descriptions and fossil localities in the Canadian and American Rockies and the central and southern Appalachians. Also included is a notebook containing Russian-English vocabulary words.

Box 1

Folder 1 Field Notes, Canadian Rockies, 1947-1948. Includes an itinerary, 1947, for a trip to British Columbia.

Box 1 of 2

Folder 2 Field Notes, Canadian Rockies, 1948

Box 1 of 2

Folder 3 Notes on United States National Museum Specimens, 1950-1951

Box 1 of 2

Folder 4 Field Notes on Fossil Localities, 1950-1959. Includes notes on fossils in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia; field photographs; and maps.

Box 1 of 2

Folder 5 Notes on the Section Above Ball Pass, Alberta, on Ridge of Isabelle Mountain, 1955

Box 1 of 2

Folder 6 Field Notes, American and Canadian Rockies, 1955

Box 1 of 2

Folder 7 Field Notes on Fossil Localities, 1957-1958. Includes locality information on fossils of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia.

Box 1 of 2

Folder 8 Notes on Upper Cambrian Fossils in Tennessee and Virginia, 1957-1958, 1960-1962. Includes photographs; list of Cambrian and some Ordovician locality collections made by Rasetti, 1940-1960; and Rasetti's bibliography of geological and paleontological publications.

Box 1 of 2

Folder 9 Field Notes on Fossil Localities and Species Descriptions, 1960-1961. Includes data on fossils from Tennessee and Virginia.

Box 1 of 2

Folder 10 Field Notes on Fossil Localities, 1960-1962. Notes on fossils from Tennessee and Virginia.

Box 1 of 2

Folder 11 Field Notes on Species Descriptions, 1964-1965. Notes on species from Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia.

Box 1 of 2

Folder 12 Field Notes, Canadian Rockies, undated. Includes notes on Cambrian localities and photographs of geologic formations.

Box 1 of 2

Folders 13-14 Field Notes, Canadian Rockies, undated

Box 1 of 2

Box 2

Folder 1 Field Notes, Canadian Rockies, undated

Box 2 of 2

Folder 2 Field Notes on Fossil Localities, undated. Includes notes on fossils from Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Quebec, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia.

Box 2 of 2

Folder 3 Russian Language Notebook, undated

Box 2 of 2

Series 2

Draft of Publication, 1961.

Box 2

Folder 4 Typescript of "Dresbachian and Franconian Trilobites of the Conococheague and Frederick Limestones of the Central Appalachians," 1961. Includes annotations.

Box 2 of 2

Series 3

Photographs, 1944 and undated. Arranged Chronologically.

This series consists of photographs of geological formations in Quebec, the Canadian Rockies, New York, and Tennessee.

Box 2

Box 2 of 2

Folder 6 Photographs, Mt. Stephen and Mt. Whyte, Canadian Rockies, undated

Box 2 of 2
Box 2 of 2

Folder 8 Photographs, Geologic Formations, Columbia County, New York, undated

Box 2 of 2

Folder 9 Photographs, Geologic Formations, Tennessee, undated

Box 2 of 2