Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Guide to the Robert B. and William R. Moran Papers
Mss 282
No online items
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Title: Robert B. and William R. Moran papers
Dates: circa 1900-2000
Collection number: Mss 282
Creator:
Moran, Robert B.
Creator:
Moran, William R.
Collection Size:
58 linear feet
(121 document boxes, 8 flat boxes).
Repository:
University of California, Santa Barbara. Library.
Dept. of Special Collections
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Abstract: Photographs and documents relating to Robert B. and William R. Moran. Most of the collection pertains to oil exploration in
California, other parts of the U.S., and abroad.
Physical location: For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the library's online catalog.
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
Moran 1963 Trust subseries is closed. Use of the remainder of the collection is unrestricted.
Copyright has not been assigned to the Department of Special Collections, UCSB. All requests for permission to publish or
quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given
on behalf of the Department of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply
permission of the copyright holder, which also must be obtained.
Robert B. and William R. Moran papers. Mss 282, Department of Special Collections, University Libraries, University of California,
Santa Barbara.
Bequeathed with the Estate of William R. Moran.
Robert Breck Moran (1879-1961) graduated from Stanford University in 1907, worked as a petroleum geologist for Associated
Oil and Standard Oil, and opened his own office in San Francisco as a consulting geologist in 1911, marrying Edna Louise
Venable (EVM) of San Luis Obispo, California, that same year. Eventually settling in Pasadena, Robert Moran moved his office
to Los Angeles in 1915. Among other achievements, Robert Moran pioneered the use of the airplane in geological reconnaissance
work and has been credited with the discovery of the Venice oil field well in Los Angeles while consulting for the Ohio Oil
Company from 1927 to 1929. On a trip to Peru in 1929, Moran discovered the Agua Caliente oil dome, upon which he established
the Ganso Azul Oil field. Robert Moran has been recognized as an early pioneer in the fields of petroleum geology and petroleum
engineering.
William Rodes Moran (1919-2006) followed in the footsteps of his father. After obtaining his BS in Geology from Stanford University
in 1942, William went on to work for Union Oil as an exploration geologist, retiring as Vice President for Exploration of
Molycorp in 1985. From 1956 to 1989 William was associate editor of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin.
In addition to his professional work in exploration geology, William was a recognized collector and researcher in the area
of early recorded sound. To consult materials related to William's early sound recording collecting and research activities
see PA Mss 57 William R. Moran Collection.
Scope and Content of Collection
This guide covers the non-music portion of the William R. Moran Collection, including material relating to Robert B. Moran
(RBM) and William R. Moran (WRM). Most of the material relates to oil exploration, in California, other parts of the U.S.,
and abroad. There is an extensive photograph component to the collection, with 200 Glass plate negatives, 8000 early black
and white negatives and contemporaneous black and white prints, and about 4300 more recent color slides.
The photographs range from about 1900 to the present, and are particularly strong in the areas of early oil exploration and
drilling along the coast and central valleys of California, geological features of the American west, particularly within
the coastal ranges and valleys of central California, Alaska, Washington, Montana, and Wyoming, as well as many early photos
of Baja and Peru.
Included among the Baja photographs are early prints, negatives and slides of the flora and physical features of the peninsula
and Guadalupe Island, likely taken by explorer and botanist Dr. Reid Venable Moran (1916-2010), William's older brother.
In addition to the photographs, the collection includes personal, biographical, and work related documents and correspondence
of both Robert and William Moran, as well documents related to the Moran 1963 Trust. Many of the Moran 1963 Trust documents
concern the Ganso Azul Oil field on the Agua Caliente dome in the eastern Andean foothills of Peru. Established in 1929 by
Robert Moran, this field first saw production in 1939. The Moran 1963 Trust subseries is closed. The collection also contains
a stereoscopic photograph subseries.
The collection has been divided into three series. Series I and II comprise the personal, biographical and work related documents
of Robert and William Moran, including the closed Moran 1963 Trust subseries. Items in this closed subseries are in original
order, and have not been re-arranged by subject or date.
Series III, Photographs, has been divided into subseries by original format, and again by location (by state if within the
United States, by country if outside the United States), or subject. Duplicate images have not been matched or cross-referenced
in different formats. For example, the same image in the Prints and negatives subseries may reappear as a glass plate in the
Glass plate negatives subseries.
In order to maintain the intellectual arrangement of certain files within this finding guide, some boxes have been listed
out of sequence. This does not, however, reflect their physical arrangement. Physical arrangement on the shelf is not by series,
but by box number, which runs continuously from beginning to end of the entire collection.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
the library's online public access catalog.
Standard Oil Company
Union Oil Company of California
Petroleum industry and trade--California--History
Black-and-white negatives
Black-and-white prints
Color slides
Photographs
Stereoscopic photographs