Civil Engineering

Scope and Contents Interview in 1978 with Frederick Converse, professor of soil mechanics emeritus, covers his family background in upper New York State, his undergraduate education in engineering at the University of Rochester, and his professional life at Caltech. At Rochester, his mentor was Frederic W. Hinrichs, who later became dean of students at Caltech in its early years. Converse was hired as an instructor in Caltech's engineering division in 1920, by the division's first chairman, Franklin Thomas. A...

Abstract Norman H. Brooks recalls his education at Harvard (AB 1949, mathematics; MS 1950, civil engineering); courtship of his wife, Frederika; their work in Boston settlement house; decision to come to Caltech for graduate work; teaching assistantship; attention to civil engineering curriculum. Summer job for L.A. County Sanitation Districts leads to further studies in hydrology and sedimentation with adviser Vito Vanoni. Comments on founding of Keck Laboratory of Hydraulics and Water Resources,...