Oral history interview with Vannevar Bush

Vannevar Bush, 1890-1974, BS and MS 1913, Tufts College; EgD 1916, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, came to MIT in 1919 as associate professor of electrical power and was made full professor in 1923. At MIT he designed the product integraph, an early computation machine, and in 1931 he completed the differential analyzer, which solved sixth-order differential equations or three simultaneous second-order differential equations and served as the prototype for other machines. At MIT he was vice president and first dean of the School of Engineering, 1932-1938, and in 1939 became a life member of the MIT Corporation. He was president of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC, 1938-1955, and became chair of the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) in 1940. Bush was made director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) when it was created in 1941 to oversee scientific research and development required for the war effort. In 1944 President Roosevelt asked him to make recommendations on government policies for supporting research, developing scientific and technical talents, and diffusing scientific information. His report, Science, the Endless Frontier (1945), led to the establishment of the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1947. He remained actively involved with governmental administration of scientific research until 1955.