The Smithsonian Libraries’ Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology has recently acquired the splendid manuscript collection of the late Henry Willard Lende, Jr, notable history of science scholar and collector. The collection encompasses 148 autograph letters by renowned scientists from the 18th to the 20th centuries. The selected list of authors of the letters speaks for itself. The collection represents an extremely high historical, research and educational value:
Ampere, Andre
Babbage, Charles
Bell, Alexander Graham
Bohr, Niels
Cousteau, Jacques-Yves
Curie, Marie
Darwin, Charles
Davy, Humphry
Disney, Walt
Eastman, George
Edison, Thomas A.
Einstein, Albert
Faraday, Michael
Fermi, Enrico
Fleming, Alexander
Ford, Henry
Franklin, Benjamin
Fulton, Robert
Gropius, Walter
Heisenberg, Werner
Henry, Joseph
Herschel, William
Jenner, Edward
Kelvin, Baron William Thomson
Koch, Robert
Le Corbusier (Chas. Edouard Jeanneret)
Lindbergh, Charles A.
Lister, Joseph
Morse, Samuel F. B.
Oppenheimer, J. Robert
Pasteur, Louis
Planck, Max
Roentgen, Wilhelm Conrad
Teller, Edward
Tesla, Nikola
Volta, Alessandro
Von Neumann, John
Watt, James
Whitney, Eli
Wright, Frank Lloyd
Wright, Wilbur and Orville
Zeppelin, Ferdinand Graf Von
Mr. Lende looked upon Bern Dibner as his mentor, and his manuscript collection took after Dibner’s expert collecting methods. The two outstanding collectors must have had much in common. They both carefully documented each acquisition with supplementary material, and Mr. Lende produced historical publications on selected letters, just like Bern Dibner published about his “Heralds of Science” (200 most important books in his library) a book year by year.
The most unique and unparalleled documents in our entire Smithsonian Libraries’ collection are the one-of-a-kind manuscript items held in the Dibner Library. Having acquired the H. W. Lende Manuscript Collection greatly enriches these holdings.