Available for use in Manuscripts Division reading room.
Copyright has been retained by the creator.
William D. Morgan papers (Mss 26), Literary Manuscripts Collection, University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis.
William D. Morgan was born in White Lake, South Dakota in 1884 and spent his childhood on a farm in southern Iowa. There was no compulsory education, so Morgan never attended school. His early ambition was to be an astronomer and during his personal course of education he taught himself algebra, trigonometry, and calculus. He moved to St. Paul, Minnesota in 1906.
Circumstances forced him into a business rather than the professional
career he wished. He worked as a traffic manager for wholesale fruit dealers
and continued his love of astronomy and mathematics. He built a notable
collection of rare books on the history of astronomy and was an amateur
astronomer. He was a member of several learned societies and was made a fellow
of the Royal Astronomical Society in recognition of the work he did in
computing the path of the total solar eclipse of 1954. He wrote many papers,
one of which was published in
The collection includes correspondence, calculations, clippings, notes, photographic slides, photographs, photostats, and articles and essays.
Morgan's collection of rare books was added to Special Collections and Rare Books at the University of Minnesota. Please check with the curator for details.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the University of Minnesota Libraries. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.
The following section contains a detailed list of the materials in the collection.
Deals with introduction of decimal system into the Netherlands.
Clippings, slides, correspondence, calculations, and reports
Correspondence and calculations
Handwritten abstract of Professor Beal's thesis done by W. D. Morgan.
Computations and notes
Clippings concerning the event
Handwritten notes made by W.D. Morgan on the Library's holdings of rare editions of Rheticus and Pitiscus.
Notes, clippings of reviews, and correspondence by W. D. Morgan regarding this book, published in 1950 by Macmillan.
Correspondence, clippings and one photograph concerning the spurious Soper Indian relics.
Clippings, photographs, one booklet, and correspondence concerning this famous 19th-century hoax.
Includes a photographic reprint of Napier's table of logarithms, published in 1618. 5 pieces.
Photostatic copy of Symmes' work, which attempted to prove that earth was hollow. Attached correspondence from W.D. Morgan to New York Public Library purchasing the photostats. 62 pp.
Correspondence and assorted literature, including one issue of the Journal of Parapsychology (September 1956), from and by J. B. Rhine of Duke University on Extrasensory Perception (ESP) and related topics. 12 pieces.
Calculations; carbon typescript of paper entitled "Life and Its Possible Place in the Universe;" carbon typescript of paper on computers and calculating machines; calculations on celestial mechanics; guide book for amateur astronomers issued by Minneapolis Amateur Astronomical Society, 1945. (14 pp)
Read before St. Paul Telescope Club. 6 pp.
Paper read before the Minnesota Section of Mathematical Association of America meeting at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. 3 pp.
Presidents of the United States, English sovereigns, and popes.