The drawings of Russell W. Porter in the Caltech Archives represent only a small portion of his output, but they range over a variety of subjects from his California period, beginning in 1928. The works have been divided into series and subseries; for example, building designs for Caltech are further subdivided for individual structures. Highlights of the collection include original design proposals for the 200-inch telescope mount, in both schematic and three-dimensional/cutaway form, plus a series of drawing of Hale's spectrohelioscope. Some of Porter's military drawings are also represented, as well as miscellaneous drawings of Caltech engineering projects such as the Hydrodynamics Laboratory.

Although trained as an architect, Russell Williams Porter (1871-1949) made his principal mark in the field of astronomy, in both the technical and popular realms of the discipline. He served as a member of the design team for the 200-inch Palomar telescope-then the biggest telescope in the world-but he is also widely recognized in the U.S. as a leader in the amateur telescope making movement.

Copyright has not been assigned to the California Institute of Technology Archives. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of the Archives. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the California Institute of Technology Archives as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.

Collection is open for research.