Catalogue

"Jack Dunitz, after meeting Clara [Brink] in Holland and learning of her plans to come to my laboratory, is reported to have said to mutual acquaintances: 'I have just met Dave Shoemaker's future wife!' Well it took two years for Dave Shoemaker to get the picture, but Jack's perceptivity was vindicated when the wedding took place in 1955."

David Shoemaker, Crystallography in North America, 1983

David and Clara Shoemaker Papers, 1930-2000

Clara Shoemaker working in an Oregon State University chemistry laboratory, 1977.
David and Clara Shoemaker working in an x-ray laboratory at Oregon State University, 1983.
Linus Pauling and David Shoemaker in a Chemistry Department lecture hall, Oregon State University, 1983.
David and Clara Shoemaker, working on an X-ray Diffractonometer Computer at Oregon State University, 1983.
Model of the crystal structure and superstructure of the K Phase, Mn77Fe4Si19. Model built by Clara B. Shoemaker, David P. Shoemaker and Ted E. Hopkins.
Beevers/Lipson strips for Fourier summation - cosine set. Collection also includes sine set and analysis apparatus.

Information and Credits

David P. Shoemaker (1920-1995) served as chairman of the Oregon State University Chemistry department from 1970-1981. Primarily an X-ray crystallographer, he was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1947 and enjoyed a long career during which he was elected to a number of leadership positions within the profession. His wife Clara Brink Shoemaker (1921-2009), received her doctorate in chemistry in 1950 from Leiden University, where her research focus was also X-ray crystallography. Clara Brink met David Shoemaker in 1953 while working as a research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - the couple wed in 1955. Clara Shoemaker was promoted to the rank of senior research professor at Oregon State University in 1982 and, as with her husband, retired as professor emeritus.

FEATURED

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“My Memories and Impressions of Linus Pauling.”
David Shoemaker, March 1, 1995. Transcript.

David Powell Shoemaker, 1920-1995
by Verner Schomaker and Kenneth Hedberg. 1996. 5 pages.

Biographical Sketch of Clara Shoemaker
by Mary F. Singleton. July 10, 1998. 6 pages.

Timeline for David and Clara Shoemaker.

Biographical Note: David Shoemaker, Biographical Note: Clara Shoemaker.

Content Description

Quantity

39 linear feet; 78 boxes

Arrangement

The Shoemaker Papers have been organized into seven series. Broadly speaking, the contents of each series have been arranged chronologically, although many items in Series 4 and Series 7 are arranged alphabetically.

Related Papers

An oral history conducted with Clara Shoemaker is available at the Archives of Women in Science and Engineering, Special Collections Department, Iowa State University Library. WISE Archives: Oral History Collection.

The Shoemakers' relationship with Linus Pauling is also well-represented in the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers, particularly in correspondence files 363.3 and 363.4.

Lastly, David Shoemaker's years as chair of the Oregon State University Department of Chemistry are documented in the Chemistry Department Records (RG 098) collection held in the Oregon State University Archives.

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