Who's on the Wall

Alexander Anderson 

Notes and sketches on the cereal grain puffing process. He eventually received 25 patents on the puffing process and the machinery used to manufacture it.   

Robert Anderson 

Illustrations from one of the patents for the Gentle Leader® Headcollar developed with Ruth Foster and Bertyl Carlson, as a humane training aid (halter) to help dog owners more easily manage the behavior of their pets.   

Dominick Argento 

Original score from the Pulitzer Prize winning song cycle From the Diary of Virginia Wolf.   

Rutherford Aris   

Research notes predicting the effects of diffusion on the productivity of a nonisothermal catalyst particle for a chemical reaction of arbitrary kinetics.   

Wallace Armstrong 

Lab notes from his research on calcium metabolism, the biochemistry of bones and teeth, which led the way for the addition of flouride in drinking water to combat dental issues.   

Rolland Arndt 

Worked on the circuitry and redesign of the NIKEZEUS at Remington Rand in 1958-1960. Remington Rand was one of the principal contractors for the development of America’s ABM system. It began with the Army’s NIKEZEUS system, a concept very similar to the other NIKE systems. ZEUS had radars to acquire and track the target and also a radar to track the intercepting missile, as well as a computer.   

Karen Ashe Hsiao 

Page from the lab book with the slot blot detectin the human transgene in the founder mouse of the Tg2576 mouse model, a mouse with an inherited form of Alzheimer’s disease. Has recently reversed the effects of memory loss in laboratory animals, even after neuronal death. This has never been done before (published in Science in 2005).   

Marvin Bacaner 

Lab notes from the development of the drug bretylium tosylate in the 1960s, which has been used to save countless heart attack victims. Bretylium, patented in 1978, has become a widely prescribed drug for preventing heart disease and life-threatening arrhythmias. Dr. Bacaner, in collaboration with retired chemistry professor, Dr. Maurice Kreevoy, has developed an oral form of Bretylium, previously only available as an injectible.   

Earl Bakken 

Original hand drawn schematic of the world’s first transistorized cardiac pacemaker, circa 1958, by the co-founder of Medtronic, Inc.   

John Bardeen 

Pages from from his lab notebook at the time the transistor was discovered. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 and 1972, for his work on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect.   

Saul Bellow 

Letter from Saul Bellow to Graham Ackroyd in reply to a query on Dangling Man. Discusses distaste for work of Paul Bowles, the public image of Hemingway - referring to a recent New Yorker magazine article he has disliked (37:17 Jl 15, 61, p. 17). Expresses sympathy for the editorial efforts of [Sinbad] Vail, in Paints, and mentions Faulkner. Thanks Ackroyd for his letter. Bellow won the Nobel Prize for Literature 1976 for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture.   

John Berryman 

Handwritten draft of the poem ‘Snow Line,’ published in 77 Dream Songs, 1964, by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. This is the book for which he won the Pulitzer Prize.   

Harry Blackmun 

This letter illustrates the judicial collaboration of Harry Blackmun and Warren Burger, boyhood friends, in US v. Nixon (the Watergate tapes case). In that landmark 1974 decision, which quickly led to the resignation of Richard Nixon, the Supreme Court recognized that a President had the right to keep executive-branch conversations and records confidential in the national interest, but that the privilege was not absolute, and the rule of law must prevail in the absence of a specific demonstration of national-security interests. Chief Justice Burger wrote the opinion for the Court, and Associate Justice Blackmun contributed a significant portion to the final.   

Carol Bly 

From ‘The Tender Organizations,’ in The Tomcat’s Wife and Other Stories, Harper Collins, 1989.   

Norman Borlaug

Final handwritten edited copy of 1970 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech for developing disease resistant and highly adaptable crop varieties that sparked the ‘green revolution.’   

Pauline Boss 

Notes from her book Ambiguous Loss which summarizes 25 years of research on ambiguous loss, a term she coined in the late 1970s while discovering how traumatizing it was for families to have members missing, physically or psychologically. The theory of ambiguous loss is now widely used to understand and treat relationships whenever loved ones are missing in mind or body. Worked with 9/11 victims.   

Paul Boyer 

Sketches made for seminars during elucidation of the enzymatic mechanism for synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Further research led to a Nobel Prize in 1997.   

Walter Brattain 

These pages record the moment when the first transistor was shown to the higher-ups at Bell Labs. A microphone and headphones were connected to the transistor, and the device was actually spoken over ‘with no noticeable change in quality’ writes Brattain. Received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 for developing the transistor.   

Herbert Brooks 

Journal page from his playbooks reflecting on the 1980 USA Olympic hockey team’s ‘Miracle on Ice.’   

Michael Dennis Browne  

 ‘Pilgrims’ Hymn’ is from The Three Hermits, a church opera commissioned by House of Hope Church in St. Paul in 1997. It has entered the contemporary repertory, with more than three dozen recordings already and large sales as sheet music.   

Henry Buchwald 

Illustrations from patents and note from laboratory diary on the development of the first implantable infusion pump invented by surgeons Henry Buchwald, Richard Varco, mechanical engineers Frank Dorman and Perry L. Blackshear, Jr., and physiologist Perry J. Blackshear.   

Warren Burger 

This letter illustrates the judicial collaboration of Harry Blackmun and Warren Burger, boyhood friends, in US v. Nixon (the Watergate tapes case). In that landmark 1974 decision, which quickly led to the resignation of Richard Nixon, the Supreme Court recognized that a President had the right to keep executive-branch conversations and records confidential in the national interest, but that the privilege was not absolute, and the rule of law must prevail in the absence of a specific demonstration of national-security interests. Chief Justice Burger wrote the opinion for the Court, and Associate Justice Blackmun contributed a significant portion to the final.   

Melvin Calvin 

Lecture notes on photosynthesis at Cambridge by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1961 for describing the chemical reactions that occur during photosynthesis.   

Jean Illsley Clarke 

Sketch of the Nurture/Structure Highway, a key component of her teaching from several of her books on topics of parenting, self-esteem and group dynamics. Later evolved into the Developmental Parenting Highway, a widely used help for adults counteracting overindulgence of children.   

Elizabeth Close 

Plans and section for Guest Cabin (at Skywater) for Joseph and Dagmar Beach, (WI), 1940. Also designed 14 homes in University Grove, Ferguson Hall and the music school as well as laying out the West Bank, Duluth and Waseca campuses.   

Winston Close 

Plans and section for Guest Cabin (at Skywater) for Joseph and Dagmar Beach, (WI), 1940. Also designed 14 homes in University Grove, Ferguson Hall and the music school as well as laying out the West Bank, Duluth and Waseca campuses.   

Jay Cohn 

Notes on planning one of the clinical trials leading to the approval of BiDil for treatment of heart failure 28 years after the drug combination was developed.

William  Cooper 

The first detailed description of Johns Hopkins Glacier, Glacier Bay, Alaska, from the field notes of 1929. Today, Cooper is considered to be the founding father of Glacier Bay National Monument, now Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.   

Seymour Cray 

Page from his notebooks with the boolean mathematics for the modules of the Cray I supercomputer. Cray is known as the ‘father of the supercomputer.’   

Edward Wilson Davis

Patent sketch for the development processes for converting taconite into iron ore in 1946. Known as the ‘father of taconite,’ he was regarded as one of the world’s foremost authorities on the processing of iron ore and taconite.   

Richard DeWall 

Sketch of the first practical heart-lung machine; the deceptively simple ‘bubble oxygenator’ he developed that would revolutionize cardiovascular surgery.   

Sam Dillon 

Notebook page of the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for The New York Times from interviews with Vicente Fox during his campaign for the presidency, which he won in 2000, ending 71 years of one party rule in Mexico.

Max Donath 

Figures from the patent using GPS, a digital map database, obstacle detection radar, and a heads-up display, to provide drivers with a virtual reality representation of the road when driving conditions make it almost impossible to see. Co-inventors include Craig R. Shankwitz, Heon Min Lim, Bryan Newstrom, Alec Gorjestani, Sameer Pardhy, Lee Alexander, Pi-Ming Cheng.   

Bob Dylan 

Lyrics for ‘Temporary Like Achilles,’ ‘Absolutely Sweet Marie’ and ‘Most Likely You Go Your Way (and I’ll Go Mine)’ from Blonde on Blonde, circa March 1966.   

Louis Errede 

Sketch from patent of a process for the manufacture of unsaturated fluorine-containing compounds. One of numerous patents he received while at 3M, the scientific aspects of which have been published in leading scientific journals.

Bruce Fink 

Sketch and label from the first lichen flora of any state (Minnesota) in 1910. Eventually wrote a lichen flora of all of the United States.

Phyllis St. Cyr Freier 

Graph from her work on a cosmic ray program using Jean Piccard’s plastic balloons. A world-renowned physicist, she discovered the presence of heavy nuclei in cosmic rays, proving the similarity between our solar system and the rest of the galaxy.   

Robert Rowe Gilruth 

Notes from his farewell speech, March 3, 1972. Pioneer in U.S. aviation and space flight; often considered the ‘father of America’s human space flight program.’   

Robert Good 

Manuscript for a published review article on the history of the world’s first and second successful bone marrow transplants performed by Dr. Good and his team at the University of  Minnesota in August and November 1968.   

Robert Gore 

Notebook with his ‘eureka moment’ for the discovery of expanded polytetrafluoroethylene, the polymer known by the Gore-Tex® brand name. The material has been worn by Arctic explorers, incorporated in space suits and implanted in millions of patients.   

Eville Gorham 

Manuscript text for an article describing the spread of urban/industrial air pollution into a rural area, where its role in lake acidification was discovered.   

Patricia Hampl 

Poem that first appeared in The New Yorker, perhaps best described as an ode to a parking ramp--which may be a first in literary history.   

Leland  Hansen 

Designed a High Frequency Chest Compression device to be used as an aid in clearance of mucus from the lungs of patients with Cystic Fibrosis or other obstructive lung disease. Tens of thousands of patients in the U.S. alone now receive HFCC therapy, the quality of their lives markedly improved.   

Starke Hathaway 

Early version of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, which became a widely-used tool to test for psychological traits of illness.   

Endesha Ida Mae Holland 

Page from original, typewritten scripts of her play Miss Ida B. Wells (1983), which includes her handwritten notes, editing and cut and paste pages.   

Hubert Humphrey 

Handwritten notes for his speech on the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. Mayor of Minneapolis, U.S. Senator and Vice President of the United States.   

Roberta Humphreys 

Hand-drawn figure of the 1979 discovery of the empirical upper limit to the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, now known as the Humphreys-Davidson Limit. This is the upper limit on the luminosities (and masses) for stars.   

Reynold Johnson 

Sketch from invention of the “mark sensing” method of scoring standardized tests taken with a No. 2 lead pencil, a technology still widely familiar to students and teachers. Led development of IBM RAMAC, the first random access computer disk drive, precursor of generations of magnetic disk drives in widespread use today. Holder of 96  U.S.  patents.   

Garrison Keillor 

Song lyrics from an early A Prairie Home Companion. Whether the radio show’s first decade or its fourth, the host’s jottings on paper scraps or computer disk, the creative process remains pretty much the same.   

Ancel Keys 

Graph from study showing the relation between diet and lifestyle and heart attack risk at the level of populations and whole cultures. This he did by measuring whole populations and following them 30 years, then preparing regressions of their attack rates on the group characteristic during health. In the enclosed case it is the ratio of mono fats (olive oil) to saturated fats (meat and dairy) in the population diet versus their coronary deaths. Also developed K-rations.   

Isaak Kolthoff 

Notebook page from the published works of the ‘father of modern analytical chemistry,’ who helped create synthetic rubber by the ‘cold process.’ He was a major force in converting analytical chemistry into a discipline based on fundamental physical principles.   

Elizabeth Libby Larsen 

Original manuscript of Symphony: Water Music which was dedicated to Sir Neville Marriner with gratitude and appreciation in 1984. This piece was commissioned by the Minnesota Orchestra.   

Ernest Lawrence 

Manuscript lecture notes. Won the Nobel Prize for Physics 1939 for inventing and developing the cyclotron.   

F. John Lewis 

Actual minute by minute operating room notes from the world’s first open heart surgery under direct vision.   

Edward Lewis 

Laboratory notebook page documenting the first of over 53,000 matings in the course of more than 60 years (1941-2004) of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. These crosses led to the discovery of a class of genes that control embryonic development in all animals. Lewis was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1995. 

Anatoly Liberman 

Notes from his research over the past 20 years on a new etymological dictionary of English which is due to be published in the near future.   

Jacob Liebenberg 

Perspective rendering for remodeling of Varsity Theater, (Mpls., MN), 1938. He designed more than 200 grand Art Deco movie theaters, including the Uptown and Suburban World.   

C. Walton Lillehei 

Notes summarizing the early results of first 160 open-heart surgeries (1954-1956) and completed the 1,000th open-heart surgery in 1960.   

Raymond Lindeman 

Figure pages of his The Trophic Dynamic Aspect of Ecology (January 1942 edition as submitted to Carpenter and Shelford). Considered ‘the father of the ecosystem concept.’   

Gertrude Lawton Lippincott 

Choreographic notes from the 1954 production of Madonna Della Rosa by the pioneering modern dancer and choreographer.   

James Luby 

Notes from evaluations of the first grafted trees of the Honeycrisp apple which was tested under the experimental designation ‘MN 1711’ and produced as part of the University of Minnesota apple breeding program to develop winter hardy cultivars with high fruit quality.   

Mark McCahill 

Notes from a meeting of the Gopher development team (Farhad Anklesaria, Paul Lindner, Dan Torrey, Bob Alberti). Gopher was the earliest popular Internet document publishing and search engine. Also lead the team at the University of Minnesota that developed POPmail, one of the first popular e-mail clients.

William McDonald 

Page from notebook detailing magnetometer readings which resulted in significant findings in the initial trench excavation at the Nichoria ridge in Southern Greece. First use of geophysics in archaeology in Greece, circa 1969. 

J. Charnley McKinley 

Early version of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, which became a widely-used tool to test for psychological traits of illness.   

Alfred Michael 

A notebook entry from his studies describing the first immunohistology of the kidney in children with glomerulonephritis, leading directly to understanding the pathogenesis of various forms of glomerulonephritis. 

Panos Michalopoulos 

Notes and sketches from the patent for the Autoscope artificial vision system integrating miniature video cameras and microprocessors for traffic sensing and measurement extraction to control congested street and highway networks, detect incidents, improve safety and security, and manage traffic efficiently.   

Calvin Mooers 

Drawing from his invention of Zatocoding, an information retrieval system which he described as ‘a complete system.’ Zatacoding used a series of specially notched cards as a technique for retrieving information. Each notch was a descriptor representing information in the document to which that card referred. 

John Najarian 

Sketch for the Minnesota Anti-Lymphocyte Globulin (MALG) process. He developed MALG, but the process was further refined by Richard Condie. In addition, he developed other anti-rejection drugs for organ transplantation.   

Gary Nelsestuen 

Notes to illustrate frustration with correct vs. conflicting information at this early stage of the 1974 identification of gamma-carboxyglutamic acid in vitamin K-dependent proteins (coauthors Thomas Zytkovicz, James Howard with mass spectrometry expertise by Thomas Krick). Members of this protein family function in both promotion and inhibition of blood coagulation and are drugs or drug targets for treatment of coagulation disorders.   

Edward Ney 

Notes from his work on a cosmic ray program using Jean Piccard’s plastic balloons which measured incoming high energy particles. After early work involving separating isotopes from uranium, he worked on the Manhattan Project which created the first atomic bomb.   

Alfred Nier 

Sketch from the papers of ‘the father of modern mass spectrometry’, and a pioneering physicist, he devised a method to isolate uranium isotope, a critical discovery in the atomic age. His development of the mass spectrometer helped to determine atomic masses, weights, and isotope abundance applied to numerous scientific and biomedical applications.   

Judy Olausen 

Original conceptual sketch and notes for a photograph from the New York Times best selling book Mother by this internationally known photojournalist. The Mother book is a unique vision of the Eisenhower-era mother. The hilarious and often haunting images serve as both a tribute to and deconstruction of the institution of motherhood. 

Frank Oppenheimer 

Miscellaneous research notes. He worked on uranium isotope separation in 1945 and joined the Manhattan Project headed by his older brother.   

Stephen Paulus 

 ‘Pilgrims’ Hymn’ is from The Three Hermits, a church opera commissioned by House of Hope Church in St. Paul in 1997. It has entered the contemporary repertory, with more than three dozen recordings already and large sales as sheet music.   

William Pedersen 

Original conceptual sketch for the Shanghai World Financial Center, one of the world’s tallest buildings. Designer of some of the world’s most distinctive large structures.

Ronald Phillips 

Notes from discovery with Ed Green of regeneration of whole corn plants from cells in a petri dish.   

George Rip Rapp 

Page from notebook detailing magnetometer readings which resulted in significant findings in the initial trench excavation at the Nichoria ridge in Southern Greece. First use of geophysics in archaeology in Greece, circa 1969.   

Ralph Rapson 

Concept sketch of the inside of the original Guthrie Theater.   

Patrick Redig 

Design of a novel fixator for repairing broken bird wings.   

James Crash Ryan 

Patent drawings of the flight recorder commonly referred to as the ‘black box’.   

Lanny Schmidt 

Sketch of the discovery of a reactor to extract hydrogen from ethanol, offering the first real hope that hydrogen could be a source of inexpensive and renewable energy.   

Otto Schmitt 

Diagram from his files on SVEC (Stereovectorelectrocardiography), which he repurposed for heart research from his development of 3D radar during World War II. Otto also invented the Schmitt Trigger, the Magnetic Anomaly Detector, and the Voluntary Cardio-Respiratory Synchronization system.   

William Schultz 

Notebook page showing some of the earliest measurements on nanocomposites developed at 3M. These materials led to the development of a number of new products based on nanoparticle technology. One of numerous patents he received while at 3M.   

Donald Deke Slayton 

Pages from his notebook in 1970. Deke made these notes on his choice for astronaut crews, including the selection of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin for the first lunar landing crew. At the time, Slayton was Director of NASA Flight Crew Operations and crew selections were his responsibility. He was also one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts.   

Athelstan Spilhaus 

Personal notes, calculations and patent drawings for the bathythermograph, an instrument he perfected that was of vital importance in World War II in the battle against the German U-boat. During the war, the bathythermograph became standard equipment on all U.S. Navy subs and vessels involved in antisubmarine warfare.   

Sarah Susanka 

A section through the stairway of the original The Not So Big House prototype, built in St. Paul in 1996, to illustrate all the concepts and principles described in the 1998 book of the same name.   

Anne Taylor 

Graph from a clinical trial based on 30 years of heart failure research at the University of Minnesota that found the drug, a fixed dose isosorbide dinitrate/ hydralazine, reduced significantly death and hospitalization in African American heart failure patients.   

James Thornton 

Page from his notebook on the development of the CDC 6600, the world’s first supercomputer, designed with Seymour Cray.   

Josephine Tilden 

Page from journals of her 1912 expedition that sailed from New York through the Suez Canal in search of rare algae specimens in Australia and New Zealand. 

Catherine Verfaillie 

The first ‘aha’ moment on stem cells in Morayma’s notebook. Identified an adult stem cell that offers hope for a cure to many debilitating diseases and injuries.    
Note: "Morayma" is Morayma Reyes, Ph.d. '01, M.D. '03, who worked with Verfaillie as a researcher at the Stem Cell Institute while at Minnesota. She is now a muscular dystrophy researcher in the Chamberlain Lab at the Univeristy of Washington.

Robert Vince 

Journal pages from research notes of Professor Robert Vince and research associate, Mei Hua, showing the final experiment in the synthesis of Carbovir, the first compound in the series leading to the drug, Ziagen® (abacavir) which was the basis for the well-known AIDS drug sold by Glaxo SmithKline.   

Owen Wangensteen 

Sketch for publication in the Western Journal of Surgery (40:1, 1932) of a stomach pump to manage intestinal obstructions, known as the ‘Wangensteen tube’ which has been credited with saving many thousands of lives.   

Warren Warwick 

Designed a High Frequency Chest Compression device to be used as an aid in clearance of mucus from the lungs of patients with Cystic Fibrosis or other obstructive lung disease. Tens of thousands of patients in the U.S. alone now receive HFCC therapy, the quality of their lives markedly improved. 

Lee Wattenberg 

Published report in the Minnesota Medical Bulletin by Dr. Wattenberg, who was widely seen as a cofounder of chemoprevention - the process of using a diverse variety of compounds including constituents of vegetables and fruits, synthetics and medicinals to prevent cancer. He also established chemoprevention as an important means of cancer prevention. 

Roberta Hill Whiteman 

 ‘Mind maps’ from the biography of Dr. L. Rosa Minoka-Hill, to be published by the University of Nebraska Press.   

Roy Wilkins 

Rare example of an autograph manuscript of a speech by the civil rights activist and former executive director of the NAACP, delivered at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Washington, D.C., 1969.   

James Wright 

Manuscript from his book of poems Shall We Gather at the River, published 1968.   

Robert Youngquist 

Sketch from patent of a device for the visual observation of magnetic signals recorded on a magnetic recording medium in tape or sheet form. One of numerous patents he received while at 3M.