Collections

Papers of the American Bureau for Medical Aid to China consist of correspondence, memoranda, reports, minutes, committee files, membership records, financial records, fund raising records, motion pictures, audio tapes, phonograph records, photographs, posters, publications of ABMAC and other printed materials. Also included are the files of related Chinese relief organizations: Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals, 1954-1969; American Emergency Relief, 1941-1946; United Services to China, 1941-1977. Of particular interest are approximately 6,000 photographs of Chinese medical colleges, hospitals, laboratories and personnel and 45 phonograph records including speeches by such ABMAC supporters as Mme. Chiang Kai-Shek, Pearl S. Buck, Wendell Willkie, Fiorello LaGuardia and a number of movie stars

Professional and personal files including Armstrong's correspondence with professional associations, other engineers, and friends, his research notes, circuit diagrams, lectures, articles, legal papers, and other related materials. Of his many inventions and developments, the most important are: 1) the regenerative or feedback circuit, 1912, the first amplified radio reception, 2) the superheterodyne circuit, 1918, the basis of modern radio and radar, 3) superregeneration, 1922, a very simple, high-power receiver now used in emergency mobile service, and 4) frequency modulation - FM, 1933, static-free radio reception of high fidelity. More than half the files concern his many lawsuits, primarily with Radio Corporation of America, over infringement of the Armstrong patents. Litigation continued until 1967. Other files deal with his work in the Marcellus Hartley Research Laboratory at Columbia University, 1913-1935, and with the American Expeditionary Forces in France during World War I, his Air Force contracts for communications development, Army research during World War II, the Radio Club of America, the Institute of Radio Engineers, FM development at his radio station at Alpine, N.J., the use of FM in television, his involvement in Federal Communications Commission hearings and legislation, and his work with the Zenith Radio Corporation. Also, letters to H.J. Round

The files of the literary agency include correspondence with authors, publishers, and other agents and deal with editing and publishing, serial rights, reprints, dramatic rights, translations and foreign rights, promotion, copyright registration, contracts, royalty statements, tax statements, and other financial materials, and the personal affairs of many clients. Among the cataloged correspondents are: Louis S. Auchincloss, Erskine Caldwell, Herbert Gold, Alberto Moravia, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Rebecca West.