Julius Adams Stratton papers

Julius Adams Stratton, 1901-1994, earned an S.B. 1923 and S.M. 1926 in electrical engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the Sc.D. in mathematical physics in 1928, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zurich, Switzerland. He was a research assistant in the Department of Electrical Engineering at MIT from 1924 to 1926 and joined the faculty of that department in 1928 as Assistant Professor of Electricity and Magnetism. In 1930 he transferred to the MIT Department of Physics where he became associate professor in 1935 and full professor in 1941. At the end of World War II, he transitioned the war time Radiation Laboratory to a new interdisciplinary Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT, serving as it's first director. He was a member of the 1947 Committee on Educational Survey (Lewis Committee) to review the state of education at the Institute; one of the recommendations of the committee led to the creation in 1950 of the School of Humanities and Social Science.

Statton was appointed as MIT's first provost in 1949 and received a concurrent appointment of vice president from 1951 to 1956, chancellor in 1956, and acting president in 1957 before serving as the 11th president of MIT, 1959 to 1966. At his retirement in 1966, at the then mandatory retirement age of 65, he was elected a life member of the MIT Corporation.

From MIT Stratton moved to the Ford Foundation. A trustee of the Ford Foundation, 1955-1971, he served as its chair from 1966 to 1971. Returning to MIT after the Ford Foundation, Stratton explored the early history of the founding of MIT, planning and writing a history later published as Mind and Hand: the Birth of MIT.

During World War II, Stratton was a research member of the MIT-based Radiation Laboratory, where he worked on the development of LORAN (Long Range Navigation). In 1942 he was assigned to Washington as Expert Consultant to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson. In this post he chaired committees to improve the effectiveness of all-weather flying systems and ground radar, fire control, and radar bombing equipment. He also helped plan the use of radar in the Normandy invasion. In 1946 he was awarded the United States Medal for Merit in recognition of his services. Later in 1967 during the administration of president Lyndon Johnson he was appointed by the president as the chair of a new Commission on Marine Science, Engineering and Resources. The landmark report of the commission Our Nation and the Sea led to the establishment of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.