Papers of Harold Clayton Urey, Nobel Prize-winning chemist who contributed to significant advances in the fields of physical chemistry, geochemistry, lunar science, and astrochemistry. He received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1934 for his discovery of deuterium, and made key scientific contributions to the development of the atomic bomb during World War II. The papers span the years 1929 to 1981 and contain significant correspondence with Urey's fellow scientists, including Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and Edward Teller. Absent from the collection are most materials relating to Urey's wartime work on the atomic bomb, records of his activities at Johns Hopkins and Columbia Universities, and documentation of his personal life.

Harold Clayton Urey was a scientist of considerable scope whose discovery of deuterium helped him win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1934. Urey also made fundamental contributions to the production of the atomic bomb through his development of the isotope separation processes for the Manhattan Project. In the period following World War II, Urey played an active part in advocating nuclear arms control, in promoting space exploration and in the development of the newly created campus of the University of California, San Diego.

75.2 Linear feet (156 archives boxes, 49 oversize folders and 5 art bin items)

Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.