Interview examines early life in Pennsylvannia; family background; schooling; college years at Swarthmore, 1916-1920; choice of major subjects; contact with J. A. Miller and choice of mathematics curriculum; move to Princeton and work with Henry Norris Russell; arrival at Princeton, 1920; recollections of Russell family; research on the position of the Moon and eclipsing binaries; work at Mount Wilson on the solar spectrum, 1925-1928; the origins of the Multiplet Table; return to Princeton; the organization of the Princeton Astronomy Department; Ph.D. thesis under A. O. Leuschner at University of California, Berkeley; early work on the solar spectrum, influence of A. Unsöld; line intensity work; collaboration with physicists; Russell's mode of research; work with William F. Meggers; molecular spectra; atomic spectra during World War II; move to National Bureau of Standards after World War II; Russell and R. Dugan; J. Q. Stewart; recollections of Russell and Princeton years; organization of work at NBS.