Finding Aid to the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Office of the Director logbooks of Donald Cooksey, 1945-1980

Selected Search Terms

These papers have been indexed in the International Catalog of Sources for History of Physics and Allied Sciences (ICOS) using the following terms. Those seeking related materials should search under these terms.

Historical Note

The laboratory was founded as the University of California Radiation Laboratory in 1931 by Ernest Orlando Lawrence, a University of California Berkeley physicist who won the 1939 Nobel Prize in physics for his invention of the cyclotron, a circular particle accelerator that opened the door to high-energy physics. It is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory, operated by the University of California. The name of the laboratory has evolved since its founding: Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (1931-1958), the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (1959-1995), and currently the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (1995-present).

Donald Cooksey (1892-1977) was a fellow physicist and close friend of Ernest Lawrence, founder of the Radiation Laboratory of the University of California (now the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory). Cooksey spent the early years of the laboratory designing cyclotron chambers (in 1937 he was the chief designer of the 37-inch cyclotron) and was the first person to hold the position of assistant director. He was then named associate director when the position was created in 1943 and remained in that role until his retirement in 1959 from the laboratory.

Scope and Contents of Collection

These log books document the incoming and outgoing correspondence from the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL) Office of the Director. The log books are referred to in the inventory as 'DC Files' as they were maintained by Donald Cooksey, who was a scientist and the first business manager of the lab under Ernest O. Lawrence. George Pappas later took over the administrative duties after Cooksey, under the directorship of Edwin McMillan and Andrew Sessler. The correspondence subjects relate to lab management, program planning, and early accelerator experiments. The logs list the document number, date of the letter, date received, description of the subject matter of the letter, to whom the letter was addressed, the author, the classification status of the letter (secret, classified, unclassified, restricted), and the filing category. The logs were declassified and some pages have been censored by cutting out portions of pages.

Access to Collection

This collection requires permission for access. Please contact the repository for more information, via email at aro@lbl.gov.

Organization and Arrangement of Collection

The log books are arranged chronologically and by document number.

Container List