Herbert L. Hahn Oral History Interview
Interviewed by Ruth Powell
Interview Sessions from 1981
- January 6, 1981
- January 20, 1981
Abstract
An interview in four sessions, January 1981, with Pasadena attorney Herbert L. Hahn, a member of Caltech’s Board of Trustees from 1955 through 1969, and a Life Trustee thereafter. He discusses the early history of Caltech at the turn of the 20th century—originally Throop Polytechnic Institute, then Throop College of Technology—as well as the capitalists and entrepreneurs who supported it financially at that time.
Describes his early associations and friendships with numerous Caltech trustees and benefactors as an attorney, and how he eventually became a Caltech Associate and later a trustee. He offers recollections of, among others, Robert Andrews Millikan, William Bennett Munro, Royal W. Sorensen, Arnold Beckman, Keith Spalding, Archibald Young, Scott Brown, Albert Ruddock, Philip Fogg, Edward Valentine, Henry Dreyfuss, and Thomas J. Watson Jr., detailing their various contributions to Caltech and to the Pasadena community.
Archival record in collection guide
PDF version of transcript [0.6 MB]
Preferred Citation
Herbert L. Hahn Oral History Interview, interviewed by Ruth Powell, Caltech Archives Oral History Project, January 6, 1981, January 20, 1981, http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechOH:OH_Hahn_H.
Oral history interviews provide valuable first-hand testimony of the past. The views and opinions expressed in them are those of the interviewees, who describe events based on their own recollections and from their own perspective. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the Caltech Archives and Special Collections or of the California Institute of Technology.