Interview with Herbert L. Hahn

Abstract

An interview in four sessions, January 1981, with Pasadena attorney Herbert L. Hahn, a member of Caltech’s Board of Trustees from 1955 through 1969, and a Life Trustee thereafter. He discusses the early history of Caltech at the turn of the 20th century—originally Throop Polytechnic Institute, then Throop College of Technology—as well as the capitalists and entrepreneurs who supported it financially at that time. Describes his early associations and friendships with numerous Caltech trustees and benefactors as an attorney, and how he eventually became a Caltech Associate and later a trustee. He offers recollections of, among others, Robert Andrews Millikan, William Bennett Munro, Royal W. Sorensen, Arnold Beckman, Keith Spalding, Archibald Young, Scott Brown, Albert Ruddock, Philip Fogg, Edward Valentine, Henry Dreyfuss, and Thomas J. Watson Jr., detailing their various contributions to Caltech and to the Pasadena community.