Arthur T. Ippen papers

The Arthur T. Ippen papers document his career as professor of civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and his active professional leadership and consulting work. The papers are resources on the topics of engineering education, international education, and water research. They also chronicle the construction and expansion of the MIT Hydrodynamics Laboratory and reflect Ippen's and the Institute's activities in international educational exchange during the 1960s and 1970s.

Biographical Material and Correspondence

The biographical and correspondence sections document Ippen's youth in Germany, his immigration to the United States, and his early career as a graduate student at the University of Iowa and at the California Institute of Technology. There is also a small amount of material which pertains to his early professional career at Lehigh University. The biographical materials include citations and correspondence concerning the many awards he received during his career, his retirement, and the memorial funds established in his honor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and by the International Association for Hydraulic Research. The correspondence files include letters from his family, and from student friends both in the U.S. and in Germany in the years before the Second World War as well as later correspondence with friends and professional associates. They also contain correspondence concerning the textbook Estuary and Coastline Hydrodynamics (1966), edited by Ippen. Photograph albums presented to Ippen on his retirement are incuded with biographical materials.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Records

As an educator, Ippen was especially active in the area of international educational exchange and in the strengthening of scientific and technical educational institutions, especially in less developed nations. This series documents Ippen's participation in the MIT cooperative program with the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in India (1965-1972), the MIT Inter-American Program in South America (1962-1965), and the MIT Faculty Exchange Program with the Technical University of Berlin (TUB), which Ippen directed from 1964 to 1974. The latter is extensively documented with interim and annual reports of project activity, reports of faculty participants, both from MIT and the Technical University of Berlin, and records of the Joint Conference on the Computer in the University (1968) which consist of correspondence, program material, and audiotapes of most of the lectures delivered at the conference. Material is also included documenting Ippen's participation in the United States-Japan Cooperative Science Program (1964-1965), the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) Graduate School of Engineering (1961), and a United States State Department sponsored exchange visit of hydraulic engineers with the Soviet Union (1961).

MIT Hydrodynamics Laboratory

There are adminstrative records of some of the numerous MIT committees on which Ippen served as well as a small amount of administrative material from the Division of Water Resources and Hydrodynamics (1952-1973), which Ippen directed throughout his career at MIT. Ippen's role in the construction and dedication of the Hydrodynamics Laboratory (1946-1950), including material relating to the dedication of the laboratory in 1951 and the symposium held to mark the occasion, is also present. The subsequent enlargement of the laboratory during the period 1964 to 1970 is documented with material from sponsors' meetings beginning in 1964 and culminating with its dedication and renaming as the Ralph M. Parsons Laboratory for Water Resources and Hydrodynamics in 1970. The dedication and concurrent symposium are also documented. The lectures presented at both symposia are present in published form. In addition, there are summaries of research for 1972-1973 and summaries of laboratory publications from 1950 to 1973.

Consulting Records and Professional Papers

Ippen's professional life is thoroughly documented in materials covering his consulting, professional work in engineering societies, and conferences. The scope of Ippen's career as a consultant is evidenced by records dating from his early jobs as a consultant while still a student at the California Institute of Technology, to the continuing consultancies with the Army Corps of Engineers which he held at the time of his death. These include his services to such major clients as the Committee on Tidal Hydraulics (1950-1974) and the Coastal Engineering Research Board (1964-1974) of the Corps of Engineers, as well as numerous other clients, both governmental and private. Among the clients represented are the Water and Power Development Authority of East Pakistan (1962) and the Port Quasim Authority of Karachi, Pakistan (1973), for whom he worked on tidal estuary problems and harbor silting problems respectively. The New York Port Authority used his services for the extension of the runway at La Guardia Airport (1958-1962). The Town of Chatham, Massachusetts, engaged Ippen to study the problems of designing a navigable channel for Chatham Harbor (1951-1956). He served the Inter-American Development Bank Mission to Assess Science and Technology Projects in Brazil (1971) and the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Advisory Committee on the Center for Hydraulics and Applied Hydraulic Research in Buenos Aires, Argentina (1969 1973). Records from all of these projects are present in the files. Ippen's work for private companies is also amply documented. There are records of numerous consulting assignments, primarily in the areas of hydraulic equipment, industrial waste disposal into streams and reservoirs, condensor water outfall problems with offshore power stations, silting problems, and harbor and dock design problems.

Ippen's professional papers document his activities in the engineering community through his participation in professional societies. Prominent among his affiliations are the Engineering Mechanics and Hydraulics Divisions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Boston Society of Civil Engineers, of which he served as president in 1960-1961, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Council on Wave Research of the Engineering Foundation, and the National Academy of Engineering. Ippen's activity on the international level is reflected in the files of the International Association for Hydraulic Research, which he served as president from 1960 to 1964, the Permanent International Association of Navigation Congresses, the International Union for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, and the Union of International Engineering Organizations.

The Ippen collection also includes a comprehensive set of his lectures, speeches, and writings. Ippen maintained such a file, often including correspondence concerning the lecture or paper in the file along with the drafts or reprints of the lecture or paper.