Vannevar Bush
- Born: March 11, 1890 (Everett, Massachusetts)
- Died: June 30, 1974 (Belmont, Massachusetts)
Education
- 1913: BS, Tufts College
- 1913: MS, Tufts College
- 1916: DE, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Major Positions
- 1913–1913: General Electric Company, Engineer, Testing Department
- 1914–1914: United States Navy, Engineer, Inspection Department
- 1914–1915: Tufts College, Instructor in Mathematics
- 1916–1917: Tufts College, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering
- 1919–1923: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Associate Professor of Electrical Power Transmission
- 1923–1932: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Professor of Electrical Engineering
- 1932–1938: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Vice President and Dean of Engineering
- 1939–1955: Carnegie Institution of Washington, President
- 1947–1948: United States National Military Establishment, Chair, Research and Development Board
- 1955–1974: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Life Member, MIT Corporation
Other Positions
- 1917–1918: United States Navy, Researcher
- 1939–1941: National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, Chair
- 1940–1941: National Defense Research Committee, Chair
- 1942–1946: United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, Chair, Joint Committee on New Weapons and Equipment
- 1941–1946: Office of Scientific Research and Development, Director
Selected Part-Time Positions
- 1946–1947: Chair, Joint Research and Development Board, United States Joint Chiefs of Staff
Selected Awards and Honors
Archival Resources
Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, DC
Online Finding Aid
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institute Archives and Special Collections, Cambridge, Massachusetts
The National Academies Archive, Washington, DC
Online Finding Aid
Oral History Interviews
- 1964: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institute Archives and Special Collections
Published Resources
Jerome B. Wiesner, "Vannevar Bush: 1890-1974", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences
Vannevar Bush, Pieces of the Action (New York: Morrow, 1970)
James M. Nyce, Paul Kahn, et al., From Memex to Hypertext: Vannevar Bush and the Mind's Machine (Boston: Academic, 1991)
Colin Burke, Information and Secrecy: Vannevar Bush, Ultra, and the Other Memex (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1994)
G. Pascal Zachary, Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century (New York: Free Press, 1997)
J. Merton England, "Dr. Bush Writes a Report: 'Science, the Endless Frontier'," Science 191 (1976): 41-47
Daniel J. Kevles, "The National Science Foundation and the Debate over Postwar Research Policy, 1942-1945: A Political Interpretation of 'Science, the Endless Frontier'," Isis 68 (1977): 5-26
Brian Randall, "From Analytical Engine to Electronic Digital Computer: The Contributions of Ludgate, Torres, and Bush," Annals of the History of Computing 4 (1982): 327-341
Larry Owens, "Vannevar Bush and the Differential Analyzer: The Text and Context of an Early Computer," Technology and Culture 27 (1986): 63-95
Nathan Reingold, "Vannevar Bush's New Deal for Research, or: The Triumph of the Old Order," Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 17 (1987): 299-344
Joel Genuth, "Microwave Radar, the Atomic Bomb, and the Background to US Research Priorities in World War II," Science, Technology, and Human Values 13 (1988): 276-289
Norman B. Krim, "Vannevar Bush and the Early Days of Raytheon," IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine 8 (1993): 3-6
Larry Owens, "The Counterproductive Management of Science in the Second World War: Vannevar Bush and the Office of Scientific Research and Development," Business History Review 68 (1994): 515-576
Michael Dennis, "Reconstructing Sociotechnical Order: Vannevar Bush and U. S. Science Policy," in States of Knowledge: The Co-Production of Science and Social Order, ed. ed. Sheila Jasanoff (New York: Routledge: 2004), 225-253
Henry Oinas-Kukkonen, "From Bush to Engelbart: 'Slowly, Some Bells Were Ringing'," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 29 (2007): 31-39
Richard Yeo, "Before Memex: Robert Hooke, John Locke, and Vannevar Bush on External Memory," Science in Context 20 (2007): 21-47
Martin Campbell-Kelly, "From the World Brain to the World Wide Web," British Society for the History of Mathematics Bulletin 22 (2007): 1-10
