Search

These are the articles and reports dealing specifically with Project Cirrus-related matters. Some are direct reports to the government regarding progress made while others were published in research journals for purposes of letting the outside world know what the Cirrus team was accomplishing. The subseries includes some drafts as well as the finished products. Researchers might find General Electric's "Project Cirrus: The Story of Cloud Seeding" (Nov. 1952) and Barrington Havens' "History of Project Cirrus" (1952) to be particularly useful summaries.

General research essentially covers all documents not dealing with Project Skyfire. Since Munitalp's purpose was to aid other organizations with their meteorological experiments, it had many different projects under its wing. Schaefer's papers in this area deal mainly with jet stream and cloud studies and weather modification. One specific example of a new weather modification experiment was Project Shower, which took Schaefer to Hawaii to work with the Pineapple Institute. Some of the files are reminiscent of his work at General Electric since his fascination with particle studies continued well beyond his days in the Knolls Research Laboratory. There are documents and photographs dealing with clouds, precipitation, and atmospheric particles, including some from Mount Washington since Schaefer continued to foster a working relationship with the lab there. Time lapse films of clouds and cloud formations were also a ground-breaking aspect of Schaefer's work with Munitalp.

This section includes some casual correspondence, as well as numerous letters from former students seeking letters of recommendation or advice from Friedländer.

Correspondence in this series centers around various topics or projects worked on by Friedländer. Included in this section are correspondences concerning the Eighth International Conference of Social Work in Munich, Germany, August 5-10, 1956, as well as his major textbook publications: Introduction to Social Welfare; Individualism & Social Welfare and Concepts and Methods of Social Work.

This section contains unidentified or miscellaneous letters, letters concerning his retirement from the University of California, Berkeley in 1959, and birthday congratulations, especially upon the occasions of his 75th, 85th and 93rd birthdays.

Just as Schaefer's best-known work at General Electric was Project Cirrus, one of his most important jobs with Munitalp was Project Skyfire. Schaefer became familiar with the problem of lightning-induced forest fires while he was still working at G.E., but it wasn't until he transferred to Munitalp that he could give the issue direct attention. Working alongside Harry Gisborne, chief of fire research in Missoula, Montana, Schaefer researched the use of cloud seeding techniques in changing patterns of lightning storms in the northwestern United States. This subseries contains the data, charts, maps, and photographs from this project.

Since Schaefer was Munitalp's director of research, and Munitalp participated in meteorological projects internationally as well as domestically, Schaefer was constantly in contact with associates all over the globe. The substantial amount of correspondence that he kept from his Munitalp years shows the greatly increased administrative role he held in comparison to his General Electric days.