national academy of sciences

Otto Struve

1897—1963

A Biographical Memoir bykevin krisciunas

Any opinions expressed in this memoir are those of the author(s)and do not necessarily reflect the views of the
National Academy of Sciences.

Biographical Memoir
Copyright 1992
national academy of sciences
washington d.c.

OTTO STRUVE
August 12, 1891-April 6, 1963
BY KEVIN

KRISCIUNAS£^X A TORK WAS THE MOTTO of the whole of life. . . . In a
V V letter [we find] the following passage: . . .The
Struves cannot live happily without unceasing work, sincefrom the earliest youth we have been persuaded that it is
the most useful and best seasoning of human life."1 Easily
counted as one of the prominent astronomers of his century, Struve left a standard that many sought to emulate
but few achieved.
The Struve I have just described is not the Otto Struveof this memoir, but his great-grandfather Wilhelm Struve(1793-1864). Yet the words apply equally well. The firstof seven Struves in five generations to obtain a Ph.D. (or its
equivalent) in astronomy,2 in 1839 Wilhelm Struve founded
Pulkovo Observatory near St. Petersburg, which has playeda major role in positional astronomy ever since.3 Wilhelm
was one of the first three astronomers to measure the trigonometric parallax of a star—the final proof of Copernicanism. He published 272 works4 and had eighteen children.5
Of the six Struves who pursued a career in astronomy,6four won the prestigious Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society: great-grandfather Wilhelm in 1826, grandfather Otto Wilhelm in 1850, uncle Hermann in 1903, andour Otto in 1944. Such a level of recognition in astronomy
351

352

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS

is unique, and the Struves must be counted with the Cassinisand Herschels as one of the most significant astronomicalfamily dynasties.
One might also note that Otto Struve's great-uncle Carl was
the Russian ambassador to Japan from 1874 to 1882, thenambassador to the United States in the 1880s.7 His uncle
Alfred was a noted geologist, and his uncle Wilhelm waspresident of the Imperial Geographical Society of Russia.8
EARLY YEARSOtto Struve was born on August 12, 1897, on his family's
estate in Kharkov, in the Ukraine, where his father Ludwig
was director of the Kharkov University Observatory. In the
Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley,
there are a few pictures relating to Struve's early years.
One shows a corner of the house in which he was born,
looking somewhat like Leo Tolstoy's house at Yasnaya Polyana.
Another picture shows Otto'sfive-year-oldbrother in a sleighhitched to a dog, with ten-year-old Otto and his seven-yearold sister standing behind. Yet another picture shows thethree children, a nursemaid, the janitor, the son of thegroundskeeper, and a cow.
Otto grew up as the eldest child in an upper-class Russian family whose relatives had ably served the Tsar andRussian science. Great-grandfather Wilhelm had fled Altona(near Hamburg) to escape being drafted into Napoleon's
army and settled in Dorpat (now Tartu) in Estonia. The
Struve heritage was thus as a family of Baltic German originthat lived and worked in the Russian Empire.9 Otto was
the first member of his family to attend Russian-speaking,not German-speaking, schools. His "first language" was equally
German and Russian.10
At the time of the beginning of World War I, Otto graduatedfrom the gymnasium in Kharkov and entered the univer-OTTO STRUVE

353

sity there to study mathematics and astronomy. In 1916 heinterrupted his studies and enlisted in the Russian Imperial Army. He became an artillery officer and served on
the Turkish front.11 After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March
1918), which ended Russia's involvement in the war, Struve
returned to the University of Kharkov, where he obtained
his degree in 1919.
Russia was in turmoil. The Tsar had abdicated in March
1917, the Provisional Government was overthrown by the
Bolsheviks in October-November of that year, and the country
was embroiled in a civil war. Struve enlisted in the White
Russian Army of General Anton Denikin in June 1919, a
move he later called "the most self-sacrificing act of mylife."12 He adds: "I have no doubt that the time will comewhen the Russian people will recognize that patriotism was
not the exclusive privilege of those who fought on thewinning side." Struve was wounded in action in July 1919.13
It was presumably during his army years that he contracted
diphtheria, scarlet fever, typhoid fever, and rheumatic
fever.
Very little information concerning Struve's activity in the
Russian Civil War has come down to us. Apparently, once
his horse was shot under him, and on another occasion hegot a bullet through his sleeve.14 For a while he was partof a cavalry unit that "would jump up and gallop off at a
moment's notice whenever there was rumour that Trotsky
was in the neighborhood. But they did not capture theleader of the opposition."15
This is not the place to discuss the Russian Civil War,but Struve was very much part of the dynamic events of thetwo stages of evacuation ahead of the Bolsheviks.16'17 In
March 1920 thousands of soldiers, women, and children
were trying to get out of Novorossisk on the Black Sea.
Roads to the port were blocked for miles. The route was

354

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS

strewn with dead bodies, stripped naked and frozen. There
were dead horses, mules, camels, abandoned guns, andvehicles. At the water's edge Cossacks shot their horses.
Starving refugees tore the corpses apart for food. Struve
was with a detachment of about 300 men. The families ofseveral officers were with them. When it was learned thatno women or children were to be allowed to board theship, a ring of people was made, and the women donned
men's uniforms. A commander of a White Army destroyer
agreed to take 150 men. Otto Struve was to count off that
half of the detachment and remain behind, but just thenthere was shell fire. The gangplank was unguarded and all
300 scrambled aboard. Seeing that the ship was listing, aBritish cruiser took on the 300 people and carried them to
the Crimea.
General Denikin, leader of the Whites, was replaced by
the inspirational General P. N. Wrangel.18 But the Whites
were on their last legs. Wrangel had commandeered enoughships and stockpiled sufficient fuel for the eventual evacuation from Russia altogether. In mid-November of 1920 a
fleet of over 100 ships, carrying nearly 150,000 men, women,
and children, left the Crimea for Turkey.19 The Russian
officers, Struve included, were sent to Gallipoli, where they
were cared for by relief agencies. Struve eventually obtained permission to go to Constantinople to look for work.
During Struve's year and a half in Turkey, he ate at soup
kitchens and worked at whatever jobs he could find. For
some time he and other fellow Russian ex-officers worked
as lumberjacks, sleeping six to a tent. One night during asevere thunderstorm, a tent nearby was hit by lightning
and all of its occupants were killed.
Enter fate. Edwin Frost, director of Yerkes Observatory
in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, had written to Struve. We readin Frost's autobiography that it was by mere chance that

OTTO STRUVE

355

his letter reached Struve. Struve was sitting on a park benchwhen another Russian ex-officer walked by. The other officer had opened the letter, hoping that it contained money.
Instead, it was an offer of a job in America.20
Struve himself told this story many times, but under careful
scrutiny the long arm of coincidence is much shorter. On
December 25, 1920, the director of the Berlin-Babelsberg
Observatory, Paul Guthnick, had written to Frost, relating
the sad case of the Struve clan.21 Hermann Struve, Guthnick's
predecessor, had died on August 12. Ludwig Struve, having fled the war-torn Ukraine, had died in Simferopol on
November 4. The younger of Otto's sisters had drowned,
and Otto's brother had died of tuberculosis. Otto's motherhad a position at the University of Simferopol. Anothersister was with the mother, but it was impossible for Otto
to communicate with them.22 As Frost had been willing to
try to obtain a position for Ludwig or Otto previously,23
could Frost try again for the young Otto? Thus asked Guthnick.
On January 27, 1921, Frost wrote back to Guthnick to
say he would do his best. There began months of sometimes daily activity on Frost's part to get Otto Struve to theUnited States. The famous job offer letter was sent by
Frost on March 2, 1921,24 and received by Otto Struve on
April 27.25 But Otto had already known that his situation
was likely to change, as he had been in contact with Guthnickand his Aunt Eva in Berlin. On March 11, 1921, Struve
wrote to Frost (in German) that he had heard of the job
offer from Guthnick.26 On April 12, Struve wrote a curious letter to Frost in English words but with entirely German syntax, in which he thanked Frost again in advancefor the job offer.27
Struve took the letter to the YMCA to make sure it said
what he thought it did. There he met a man named Areson,

356

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS

who came from southern Wisconsin, knew Yerkes Observatory, and also knew Frost.
It is interesting to note what Frost said to others to strengthen
the case for Otto Struve to enter the United States. To thepresident of the University of Chicago he wrote, "[Otto] isthe son of the late professor of astronomy at Kharkov, andgrandson and great-grandson of the two greatest astronomers of Russia, Otto and Wilhelm Struve. . . . I am perfectly willing to take him on his lineage."28
We regard Otto Struve as a first-class spectroscopist andastrophysicst. But in the letter of March 11, 1921, he says
this to Frost:
I feel it is my duty to confess openly that I am only marginally familiar withthe area of astronomical spectral analysis and that I practically have neverworked in that area. . . . Should this prove to be no hindrance to myappointment at Chicago [for the position of assistant for stellar spectroscopy], I would gladly answer your call.

Thus, Struve's training in astrophysics was almost entirely at the University of Chicago.
It took all spring and summer to arrange for Struve's
visa and passage to the United States. He arrived in New
York on October 7, 1921.29 Three days later he arrived in
Williams Bay,30 wearing not the tattered Russian officer's
uniform he had had on the ship, but an outfit he hadbought at a flea market in New York, consisting of orange
shoes, purple trousers, and a green jacket.15'31
YERKES YEARS

Struve was to spend the next twenty-nine years associated with Yerkes Observatory. He obtained his Ph.D. in
December 1923 from the University of Chicago, with a dissertation on short-period spectroscopic binaries, and subsequently became instructor (1924), assistant professor (1927),

OTTO STRUVE

357

and associate professor (1930), and on July 1, 1932, hesucceeded Frost as director. Struve became an American
citizen in 1927.13
Otto's mother came by ship to the United States in early
1925. As Frost tells it:
When I realized that her steamer would be crossing the line of totality ofthe eclipse of January 24, 1925, I prepared quite an elaborate document
appointing her commissioner on the high seas of the Yerkes Observatory of
the University of Chicago. I forwarded this to the chief officials of thesteamship company in Hamburg and received from the commodore of the
fleet the assurance that Madame Struve would have every opportunity toobserve the eclipse. At the critical moment, with due ceremony, the captain escorted her to the bridge in spite of the fact that there was a snowstorm at the time.32

There is no account of the elder of Otto's sisters, who
had been with Madame Struve in Simferopol. Presumably,
she died between 1921 and 1925.33
Otto Struve married Mary Martha Lanning in May 1925.
According to Chandrasekhar, it was her second marriage.34
For three years prior to this, Mary had worked as a secretary at Yerkes. (Thus, she knew about observatory business.) "When [Mary] and Otto were first married they had
such romantic feelings about their lives at Yerkes. . . . Theyskated on Lake Geneva in the wintertime while Otto sang
Russian songs, very romantic songs to her."35 At one point
Otto and Mary almost adopted a four-year-old boy, but apparently Mary then decided against it. In the 1950s Struve
lamented that the biggest disappointment in his life was
not to have had a child (one would presume a son) towhom to pass on the Struve legacy.36
It is difficult to guess how the dynamics of Otto's marriage affected his scientific endeavors. Apparently, Mary
enjoyed the status of being the wife of a famous observa-

358

BIOfiSRASPHICAL MEMOIRS

tory director, and she would go to McDonald Observatory
with Otto for months at a time, where she would help him
with his data reduction tasks by copying down numbersthat Otto called out while his eye was glued to a microscope eyepiece as part of reducing spectra.37
Otto, Mary, and Madame Struve (Otto's mother) formeda triumvirate. They lived together essentially the entire
thirty-eight years of Otto and Mary's marriage. Both Otto's
wife and mother survived him, but only by a few years.38
Otto Struve's first published paper, in Russian, concerned"Aid to Russian Scientists."39 In the aftermath of the Russian Civil War, many people in Russia were starving. Frost,
Struve, and George van Biesbroeck served as the Committee for Relief to Russian Astronomers.40 Packages of foodand clothing were sent to Russian astronomers in many
cities. The funds came from astronomers and their families all across the United States.
Struve's scientific publications begin in 1923. The previous
autumn the American Astronomical Society had met at Yerkes
Observatory. Struve presented a paper on the spectroscopic
binary 13y Ursae Minoris, and the two-page abstract was published in Popular Astronomy. Struve's publication list grew at
an average rate of twenty-two items per year, reaching a totalof at least 907 items.41 This places him near the top of astronomical productivity^42 as measured by the total number ofpublished items. (Thus, it is difficult to do justice to Struve's
work in an article of this length.) About half of Struve's papers were what we call technical contributions. He publishedthirty-nine articles (and ten other items) in Popular Astronomy(1923-51), 154 in Sky and Telescope (1942-63), and eightythree reviews of books and other astronomers' work. His popular
articles kept many astronomers, both amateur and professional,
abreast of the rapidly developing field of twentieth century
astronomy and astrophysics.

OTTO STRUVE

359

Struve's most important work was published in several
books and in the Astrophysical Journal, the premier research
journal of astrophysics, which Struve edited from 1932 to
1947. According to my count, there were 223 such papers.
As a junior astronomer, Struve collaborated on projects
with the more senior Yerkes astronomers. There were sevenpapers with G. van Biesbroeck containing positional measurements of asteroids (1923-28). With Frost and Storrs
Barrett, he published "Radial Velocities of 368 Helium Stars"
in 1926, and with the same coauthors, "Radial Velocities of
500 Stars of Spectral Class A" in 1929.43 Such velocity dataon stars allowed the determination of the sun's motion in
the local portion of the galaxy. Also, the data bank ofspectra with sufficient resolution to allow radial velocity
measurements was also a data bank for Struve's subsequent
work on the "peculiarities" of stellar spectra.
One of Struve's early and ongoing interests was interstellar calcium, whose presence was known from the absorption lines in the spectra of many stars.
It is now well known that most stellar atmospheres haveabout the same composition, but that the presence or absence of certain spectral lines is due to the pressure andtemperature in these atmospheres. One of Struve's mostimportant contributions to stellar spectroscopy involved theobserved widths of spectral lines. These are affected by
the abundances of the elements, broadening due to therotation of the stars, and the effect of electric fields on theatoms (the Stark effect). The resulting widths (or dispersions) add quadratically:observed

abundance

rotation

Stark

Struve noted in a 1929 paper that it was R. d'E. Atkinson
who, in 1922, first considered Stark broadening in stellar
spectra. Theoretical analyses by E. O. Hurlbert, H. N. Russell,

360

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRSand J. Q. Stewart, and then M. Vasnecov, led to predictionsof a measurable effect, a broadening of 1 A for the sun,but 42 A for a Lyrae, a much hotter star. Cecilia Payne
had noted the Stark effect in actual spectra in 1925,44 but
it was Struve and C. T. Elvey (one of his two principal
collaborators in the 1930s) who published the first proof.
They investigated the widths of spectral lines in hot B andA stars and found that neutral atoms of low atomic weightshow wider lines than the heavier atoms. They found thatstars with narrow lines were more luminous than stars of thesame spectral subdivision with broad lines, in agreement withtheory. Theory stipulated, however, that hydrogen lines
should increase in width due to Stark broadening from Hp
to He, and the observed increase was less than expected.
With the Russian astronomer G. A. Shajn, Struve showed,
in 1929, that B- and A-type stars rotate much faster thanthe cooler G, K, and M stars. The hot stars can have equatorial rotation speeds in excess of 200 kilometers per second. By comparison, the sun's value is 2 kilometers per
second. This led Struve to conjecture that rapidly rotatingstars could fission into rapidly revolving close binaries, or
perhaps rapidly revolving close binaries might fuse into
rapidly rotating single stars.
Because stellar spectral lines contain information on abundance, rotation, and the Stark effect, one must try to separate their relative contributions. Struve states that the rotational dispersion can be separated statistically in short-periodbinaries. The dispersion due to abundance is best investigated in cooler stars (for which the Stark effect is small).
Pinning down the Stark component involves a strong combination of theory and high dispersion observations of stars,
something Struve specialized in.
A fourth contributing factor to the stellar spectral lines
is turbulence in the stellar atmospheres. In 1934 Struve

OTTO STRUVE

361

and Elvey showed that stars such as 17 Leporis had lines
with broad wings, attributable to turbulent motion on theorder of 67 kilometers per second. This paper was an important contribution to the curve of growth method ofspectral analysis (then only five years old), whereby thenormalized line strengths (i.e., equivalent widths) are correlated with the abundances of the atoms present.
One of Struve's most important accomplishments was
the organization of the construction of McDonald Observatory in west Texas. This has been described in somedetail by Evans and Mulholland in their book Big and Bright:
A History of the McDonald Observatory.45 The funds for theobservatory came from the estate of a wealthy Texas banker,
W. J. McDonald (1844-1926), who left the bulk of his money($800,000) to the University of Texas for the constructionof an astronomical observatory. The will was contested by thebanker's relatives, partially on the grounds that the desire toendow astronomy was a clear demonstration of insanity. The
problem for the University of Texas was that it had the money
but no astronomers. One of the chief testimonials to the usefulness of endowing an observatory came from E. B. Frost at
Yerkes, and a thirty-year partnership between the Universityof Chicago and the University of Texas commenced in 1932,
the year Struve became director. As Struve moved up the
Yerkes ladder, he thus knew that at the top was the directorship of not one, but two, observatories.
Plans for the observatory called for a reflecting telescopeof aperture 80 inches. (It turned out to be an 82-inch, andat the time of its dedication in 1939 was second in size only
to the 100-inch at Mount Wilson.) It is situated at the
6,800-foot summit of Mount Locke in Jeff Davis County, asite likely to remain free from light pollution forever,given the desolation of west Texas and the observatory's
remoteness from the nearest large city (160 miles).

362

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRSBefore the eighty-two inch telescope at McDonald was
ready, important results had already been obtained at thisnew observing station for the Yerkes astronomers. Using a
150-foot nebular spectrograph set up on a hillside, Struve
and his colleagues demonstrated that there are large areasof diffuse emission in the galaxy, showing lines of hydrogen and forbidden lines of ionized oxygen and nitrogen,which are characteristic of interstellar gas excited by ultraviolet light from hot stars. Today we call the ionized regions around hot stars Stromgren spheres, but Stromgren
himself admits that it was Struve's observations in the late
1930s that stimulated his own theoretical work on questions relating to the interstellar medium.46
From 1932 onward Struve coauthored more papers withPol Swings (1906-83) than with anyone else. Their prime
occupation was spectroscopic studies of peculiar stars.
What constitutes a peculiar star? W. W. Morgan recalls:"[Struve] made the remark once that he never looked at
the spectrum of a star, any star, where he didn't find something important to work on."47 E. A. Milne adds: "[I]t is
usually easy to recognize the characteristic Struve touch,the touch of one to whom the individual stars, with theirindividual peculiarities, were personal friends."48
To Struve, stars that had variable spectral lines were themost interesting, and the more complex those variations
were, the better. Some of his favorites included unstableclose binaries whose spectra were complicated by streams
of gas, such as 27 Canis Majoris and (3 Lyrae. Struve contributed greatly to the study of the unusual binary e Aurigae,
an F-type supergiant that undergoes a two-year eclipse every 27.1 years. Struve participated in two observing campaigns on this object, in 1928-30 and 1955-57. Curiously,
the absorption lines of the system are almost identical during the eclipse and out of the eclipse. In 1937, G. Kuiper,

OTTO STRUVE

363

B. Stromgren, and Struve concluded that the eclipsing body
is a very tenuous mass of gas which is partly transparent to
optical light.49 Their model was criticized by others. Until
recently, it could only be agreed upon that the eclipsing
body was either a semitransparent shell or a flat, opaquedisk that covers half of the surface of the primary. Recent
data obtained with the International Ultraviolet Explorer
allow us to update the Kuiper-Strdmgren-Struve model:
the eclipsing body is a star of temperature 10,000 Kelvin,
about four times the size of the sun. Infrared data obtained during the 1982-84 eclipse show that the companion star is surrounded by a ring of dust of radius 10 Astronomical Units, with a temperature of 500 Kelvin.50 There
are still various uncertainties in modeling e Aurigae, and it
is to the credit of Kuiper, Stromgren, and Struve that they
got the basics of the model correct from optical wavelength
data only.
As the director of the Yerkes and McDonald Observatories, Struve was both dedicated and demanding. He wasinvariably the first one to arrive in the morning, and hespent many evenings at the office.51 After an evening staff
meeting he might go off to the forty-inch and observe allnight.52 That he could be considered a twenty-four-hour-aday astronomer was almost true.53 "He had only one interest and one concern, namely, that astronomy should be
developed and pushed to the maximum that was possible."54"On one theme alone he was completely inflexible, that ascientist should think first of science and only third or
fourth of himself."55
Because of Struve's duties and observational interests there
was insufficient time for him to be very involved with teaching, at least while he was at Yerkes. Chandrasekhar recallsthat Struve's frequent trips to Texas caused him to miss up
to two-thirds of his lectures. No one was assigned to teach

364

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS

them in Struve's stead; students were given some plate tomeasure and analyze in his absence.56 Still, when it cameto Ph.D. qualifying exams, Struve had a great interest in ahigh level of achievement. W. H. McCrea recalls that he
was astonished to see how exacting Struve's standards were.
He would not "lower the hurdle" but would give the student "the fullest possible opportunity to surmount it."57
We can characterize Struve's attitude toward his colleagues
and students thus: "It was unforgivable in his eyes for anyone to fall short of full commitment."52
In spite of Struve's successes in building McDonald andpushing astrophysics ahead, a case could be made that his
greatest accomplishment was making the Yerkes Observatory staff the brain trust it was in the 1930s and 1940s.
Elvey we have already mentioned. W. W. Morgan finishedhis Ph.D. under Struve in 193158 and recalls, "His [Struve's]
influence was far and away the most important in my formative years as an astronomer. He had an intense enthusiasm that he translated to me, and was the sound basis onwhich I was able to build."59 In the summer of 1936 Gerard
Kuiper was hired, and also Bengt Stromgren (later Yerkes
director, 1950-57). In 1937 S. Chandrasekhar, the brilliant
mathematical astrophysicist, was hired. Other notables
who were staff members include Jesse Greenstein, W. A.
Hiltner, and Gerhard Herzberg. There were many visitors,
such as Swings, Jan Oort, M. G. J. Minnaert, H. C. van deHulst, and Albrecht Unsold.
Struve worried about appearances, rank, and position.
During the Depression he was concerned about hiring foreign astronomers when many Americans were out of work.
When the wife of his deputy George van Biesbroeck wrote
a letter to Belgium which was excerpted in a popular astronomy magazine and noted how Yerkes was being run by"the two Europeans," Struve was particularly angry.60 ThatOTTO STRUVE

365

is how Morgan, who was born in America, replaced van
Biesbroeck as deputy.
Not all these luminaries stayed at Yerkes forever. Stromgren
returned to Denmark after only a year and a half, thoughlater (1947-48) he was a visiting professor.61 World War II
threatened to take all the staff away for war work. (Elvey
went and never came back.) The very existence of theobservatory was threatened. Subscriptions to the AstrophysicalJournal declined, and the number of issues sent abroad was
reduced, because of censorship, to a trickle. Struve did hisbest to keep things together and founded the Yerkes
Optical Bureau, which did wartime optical designs.62
One of Struve's most progressive ideas from the war years
was the proposal to organize a scientific consortium, which
would run McDonald Observatory and even build a newtelescope, a Schmidt camera with a seventy-two-inch sphericalmirror and a fifty-inch corrector. If the consortium were
to be organized, its member universities could provide theirrespective astronomers access to first-class telescopes at afirst-class site.63 While nothing came of the idea at thetime, the 1950s saw the establishment of the Association of
Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), which runs
Kitt Peak National Observatory. Otto Struve served on theoriginal organizing committee for building KPNO.64
After the war, science worldwide underwent a major phaseof expansion that has continued until today. The University of Chicago hired many new famous faculty and madethem Distinguished Service Professors: Marshall Stone (mathematics), Enrico Fermi (physics), Harold Urey (chemistry),and Gustav Rossby (meteorology). But President Robert
M. Hutchins had overlooked upgrading Struve's rank.
Chandrasekhar sensed Struve's disappointment and went
to Hutchins to suggest making Struve a Distinguished Service Professor. According to Chandrasekhar's later memory,

366

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS

Hutchins said, "I can kick myself for not thinking of it.
I'm ashamed that I never thought of it. Thank you, Chandra,
for telling me." Struve became a Distinguished Service
Professor within a month.65
The years 1947-50 were a stress-filled time for Struve
and Yerkes, and this was due in part to a miscalculation by
Struve. Struve's ideal was George Ellery Hale (1868-1938),
the founder of Yerkes Observatory, then of Mount Wilson
Observatory.66 Hale can be seen looking over Struve's shoulder
in the photograph accompanying this article. Chandrasekhar
recalls, "[Struve] imitated his life, I think even consciously.
. . . [H]e wanted very much to be treated the way Hale wastreated in the latter part of his life. It was his great disappointment to him that he felt he was not so treated."67
In 1947 Struve became chairman of the astronomy department, and Kuiper became observatory director. Apparently Struve expected Kuiper to seek his approval on all
major observatory matters. Kuiper, who had a mind of hisown, could not function in this manner, and developed anulcer.68 Struve's junior colleagues were renowned in theirown right and Struve "perhaps felt a little as a masterful
conductor might whose choir all wanted to be soloists."69
In 1949 Struve wrote to his wife that he felt he was being
squeezed out of Yerkes by Chandrasekhar and Kuiper.70
Archival material shows that there were a lot of bitter feelings about the situation at Yerkes at that time, but in reality astronomy always came first with Struve, and Struve's
estimate of a person's contributions to astronomy was themost important part of Struve's relationship with that person. For example, Struve was responsible for Chandrasekhar
being nominated as the Russell lecturer of the American
Astronomical Society for 1949. Struve nominated Chandrasekhar as his successor as president of the AAS (a post
Struve held from 1946-49). Also, on the first occasion

OTTO STRUVE

367

that Struve participated in the selection of a Bruce Medalist, the award was made to Chandrasekhar in 1952.
Chandrasekhar told me in 1987, "I am concerned with theprevalent misunderstanding that Struve and I did notcontinue with the warmest personal relations during thelater years at Yerkes or after his departure to Berkeley andelsewhere."71
Kuiper recalls this period as follows:[Struve] was often overworked, suffered from insomnia which caused him
sometimes to be in somewhat of a daze following two or three hours of
sleep. . . . In time he decided on a complete change, accepting a professorship at the University of California in 1950. To his former Yerkes associates and friends, Struve appeared a different man after he had moved toBerkeley. . . . He seemed casual and even somewhat light-hearted about his
new duties and involvements, although he took his scientific observing
programs, now carried out at the Mt. Wilson Observatory as a guest investigator, as seriously as ever.10
POST-YERKES YEARSAt Berkeley, Struve was chairman of the astronomy department and director of the Leuschner Observatory. Therehe devoted much more time to graduate students than wasever possible at Yerkes. He worked closely with postdoctoral
fellow Su-Shu Huang, Argentinian astronomer-in-exile Jorge
Sahade, and assistant Velta Zebergs.
During the 1950s Struve devoted a great deal of energy
to the study of P Canis Majoris (or |3 Cephei) stars, a field"which he was thought to have discovered, has since beenbrought to fruition, and progress in it has been gratifying."72 There are only about two dozen of these stars known,
perhaps due to the small fraction of time massive stars arefound in one portion of the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram.
These stars are all of spectral type BO to B3 and are giants,
subgiants, or bright giants (luminosity class II to IV). They

368

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS

exhibit light and spectral variations on time scales of hours
and show multiple periods in their light curves. Their behavior is attributed to pulsations regulated by a combination of the mass and rotational speed.
Having served as a vice president of the International
Astronomical Union from 1946 to 1952, Struve was honored with election to its presidency in 1952 at the Romeassembly. The Korean War had caused the cancellation of
the IAU meeting scheduled for Leningrad in 1951. Viktor
Ambartsumian, spokesman for the Soviet delegation, hadexpressed official displeasure regarding the cancellationof the Leningrad meeting. It fell to Struve to reassure theRussians that a meeting would take place in the Soviet
Union soon. Struve's comments were made to the assembly in Russian and electrified the audience.
In 1955 the IAU met in Dublin. Struve's opening address,
reprinted in the October 1955 issue of Sky and Telescope, wasfull of anecdotes and was not of the serious tone one usuallyassociates with him. Struve reminded his listeners that the
purpose of the IAU was to pursue international cooperation
whenever necessary or useful, as opposed to whenever possible. He related his own perspective that astronomy researchrequires the participation of all civilized nations, that the mostimportant tools of astronomy were the astronomers. (Thus,
training is paramount.) He quoted de Sitter that "astronomy
is the most beneficial of the sciences for serving the ideal
aims of mankind," He said that the IAU should advise various
national committees regarding their scientific priorities, but
added, "As a believer in evolution rather than revolution, I
do not advocate sudden changes."
In 1958 the IAU meeting was held in Moscow, but Struve
did not attend. A couple of years previously he had received a copy of a book that dealt with astronomy at the
University of Kharkov (Struve's alma mater) from 1805 toOTTO STRUVE

369

1955. Struve noted that the book was devoid of a greatamount of political propaganda. However, he found outthat the Library of Congress had a previous version of thebook that contained derogatory remarks about him. The
copy that had been sent to Struve had had four pages removed, with others pasted in as replacements. This involved changes to the first appendix, the index, the tableof contents, and even the errata slip.73
The undoctored version discusses Otto's father, Ludwig,
then says:
His son Otto Struve, having been instructed in his own time at Kharkov
University, [and] having betrayed his native land [izmenniv Rodine], went
abroad and settled in the USA. Over the course of a long time he was in
the service of the American imperialists in the capacity of director of the
Yerkes Observatory, near Chicago.74

In the book Struve was also taken to task for his article"Freedom of Thought in Astronomy," published in 1935.
Struve was not amused that his activities were called "traitorous," and did not want to be subjected to any further
attacks in Moscow.
In 1956 Struve suffered a fall while observing. Brokenbones kept him from being at the University of Pennsylvania to receive an honorary degree in June of that year.
About 1958 he contracted hepatitis, and its aftermath
was cirrhosis of the liver, the eventual cause of hisdeath.75
While Struve's published papers still dealt with opticalstellar spectroscopy, he also became convinced of the importance of developing radio astronomy, which he pushed
at Berkeley. In 1959 he took a new job as the first directorof the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green
Bank, West Virginia, in part because he was on the searchcommittee for a director, and the committee could not

370

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS

find anyone to accept the position.76 Struve lent prestige
to NRAO at that time, and he served as a mentor becauseof the astronomical research tradition he represented. Somefeel he was not the right person for the job, and it was adisappointment to all that the construction of the 140-foottelescope, well under way at the time of Struve's arrival,
was slowed beyond expectations. Still, Struve's prestige
lent credence to the proposal for the 300-foot transit telescope, which recently finished twenty-five years of service,77 and Struve was supportive of Frank Drake's ProjectOzma, the first search for extraterrestrial life.
After two and one-quarter years as the director of NRAO,
Struve decided to resign. He wrote to I. I. Rabi, the president of Associated Universities, Inc., which managed NRAO,
that he had insufficient time for his research, and that all
the meetings "leave me in a state of continuous fatigue
which is the cause of other health problems."78
Struve's final positions were as a visiting professor of
astronomy at Caltech and, simultaneously, a visiting staff
member at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
He died on April 6, 1963, in Berkeley, California, and his
remains were cremated.
We list below Struve's academic awards and honorary
degrees.
1944
1948
1950
1950
1954
1954
1955
1955

Gold Medal, Royal Astronomical Society
Bruce Gold Medal, Astronomical Society of the PacificDraper Medal, National Academy of Sciences
Decoration: Chevalier, Order of the Crown, Belgium
Rittenhouse Medal
Janssen Medaille, Societe Astronomique de France
Medaille Jules Cesar Janssen, French Academy of Sciences
G. Bruce Blair Award, Astronomical Society of the PacificOTTO STRUVE

371

Honorary doctorates:
1939 Sc.D., Case School of Applied Sciences
1946 Sc.D., University of Copenhagen
1948 Sc.D., University of Liege
1951 Doctor Honoris Causa, National University of Mexico
1956 Sc.D., University of Pennsylvania
1960 Sc.D., Wesleyan University
1960 Dr.Phil., Kiel University
1960 Doctor Honoria, National University, La Plata
1961 Doctor of Laws, University of California

CONCLUDING REMARKS

According to Struve's own hand, when he was in his early
fifties he was six feet tall, weighed 192 pounds, had grey hairand grey eyes. (I mention this because of some recollections
that Struve was of very great size, which in fact was not all that
great.) It has been said by a number of independent sourcesthat he was walleyed because of spending too much time squinting into a microscope eyepiece measuring spectra, which ruined his binocular vision. His physical appearance and demeanor were such that people were intimidated by him, although
he did not try to be intimidating.
Others speak of his European formality. In 1963 Struve
sent a copy of Astronomy of the 20th Century to Morgan,

which was inscribed, "To Bill Morgan." This was the only
time Struve had ever called him by his first name. Yet withastronomers such as Bart Bok, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin,
Sergei Gaposchkin, Bengt Stromgren, Nicholas Bobrovnikoff,and others, his letters began with greetings, "Dear Bart,"
Dear Cecilia," etc. Letters to his wife start simply, "Dearest" and end "Love, Otto."
Struve was a very, very serious person, but not one hundred percent so. The brief obituary of Struve by Chandrasekhar
in the Astrophysical JournaP9 is accompanied by a picture of

372

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRSStruve laughing. Chandrasekhar chose that picture on purpose.
In a 1941 article on interstellar matter, Struve recalls something
said by Eddington: people talk a lot about interstellar dust
and gas, though they do not know much about it. This is
like the man who refuses to sleep in a supposedly haunted
room and says, "I do not believe in ghosts, but I am afraid ofthem."
What is Struve's legacy? It is not really that things havebeen named after him, like asteroid 2227 Struve,80 or theeighty-two-inch telescope at McDonald, named in his honor
in 1966.81 One Festschrift was published in 1966,82 andanother in 1973.83 In 1970 a collection of ten of his best
papers was published with then-modern updates by experts
in each subspecialty.84 If we focus on Hearnshaw's book
The Analysis of Starlight, the three most mentioned names
are those of Struve, W. S. Adams, and H. C. Vogel.
In addition to the founding of observatories, the Struve
family legacy involves the observation of double stars. Otto's
great-grandfather and grandfather observed the positionsof double stars. Otto observed them spectroscopically. Otto
Struve was one of the first to study the processes of masstransfer between hot stars and their companions. "Thefact is that mass transfer in interacting binaries is behind
all the work now going on in such objects as novae, recurrent novae, and by generalization to more massive objects
to the infall of material into white dwarfs, into black holes,etc."85 Struve and other pioneers in this field gave us "information that was not merely gravitational but also entered the region of atomic physics."
Another whole field that this touches on therefore is the nature of thespectroscopic peculiarities of matter in rapid motion at relatively low densities travelling from one star to another. Furthermore, in cases where
mass is lost to an individual star alone or in a binary expanding shells

OTTO STRUVE

373

occur which are recognizable by spectroscopic peculiarities due to the dilution of radiation. Struve and Wurm were among the first to compute theeffect of dilution of the radiation field on the spectroscopic evidence. The
idea of non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (non-LTE) now dominates
solar envelope astrophysics, theory and observation, and became a useful
tool for the recognition of stellar winds before observations from space
and the ultraviolet made them directly observable. Similarly, the phenomenon he calls large scale turbulence which affects the curves of growth of
disturbed stars is connected with the heating of the outermost envelope or
the wind itself, so that the characteristic temperature inversion, with thechromosphere hotter than the reversing layer and the corona hotter thaneither seems to be a general characteristic of dilute gases in rapid mo-

Struve's contributions to the growth of American astrophysics cannot easily be overestimated. He had a hand in
the renaissance at Yerkes and the establishment of McDonald
Observatory, Kitt Peak National Observatory, and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. He built the Yerkes
brain trust of the 1930s and 1940s and provided visiting
European astronomers with scientific opportunities unattainable in Europe. Struve was one of the founders ofmodern consortium research. He also helped hold theInternational Astronomical Union together in the politically charged 1950s.
Struve was exceptionally dedicated to astronomy and worked
very hard, many would say too hard, to advance it. His
legacy is the influence he had on his colleagues and associates worldwide, personally and in print. His life and his
dedication were exemplary, one might say even legendary.
THIS MEMOIR COULD NOT have been written without input

from people who knew Otto Struve, particularly S.
Chandrasekhar, W. W. Morgan, Sarah Kuiper Lansberg,
and Jesse and Naomi Greenstein. An earlier draft of this

374

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS

paper was read by a number of interested parties, among
them A. Batten, D. Osterbrock, D. DeVorkin, J. Sweitzer,
B. T. Lynds, V. Zebergs, I. Biermann, L. Sisson, and G.
Herbig. The last mentioned made useful suggestions forthe selected bibliography. Invaluable material was obtained
from the Bancroft Library (University of California, Berkeley) , the Yerkes Observatory archives, and the Gerard Kuiper
archives at the University of Arizona.
NOTES
1. Otto Wilhelm Struve, Zur Erinnerung an den Vaterden Geschwistern

dargebracht (Karlsruhe, 1895) :9. Unpublished 87-page translation
by Alan Batten.
2. Alan H. Batten, "The Struves of Pulkovo—A Family of Astronomers," Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, 71(October 1977):345-72. See also Alan H. Batten, Resolute and Undertaking Characters: The Lives of Wilhelm and Otto Struve (Dordrecht:

Reidel, 1988), and the series of articles about the Struves by Z. N.
Sokolovskaya in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
3. Kevin Krisciunas, Astronomical Centers of the World (Cambridge:

Cambridge University, 1988):chapter 5, and references therein.
4. Z. N. Novokshanova (Sokolovskaia), Vasilii IAkovlevich Struve(Moscow: Izdatel'stvo "Nauka," 1964):249-73.
5. O. W. Struve, note 1, pp. 29-30, 56.
6. Otto Struve's cousin Georg (1886-1933) was an astronomer
in Germany whose son Wilfried (1914-) obtained a Ph.D. in astronomy in 1939, but after World War II became an acoustical engineer.
7. Otto Wilhelm Struve to Simon Newcomb, 13/1 January 1882,
Newcomb Archives at the Library of Congress. There are elevenletters of Carl Struve to Newcomb and his wife in this archive.
8. Otto Struve, "Abridged Record of Family Traits," National
Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. 1954?.
9. On one of Otto's immigration applications to the United Statesin 1921 he lists his nationality as Estonian. He may have feared that
American officials would not give him a visa if they thought all
Russians were Communists. Edwin B. Frost to Henry de Bach, July

OTTO STRUVE

375

26,1921, Yerkes Observatory Archives. Also, Struve Archives at Bancroft
Library, ID number 67/135, identity papers.
10. Gerard P. Kuiper to T. G. Cowling, August 7, 1963, Kuiper
Archives, University of Arizona.
11. Lieutenant Struve is pictured on p. 5 of James S. Sweitzer, "A
Most Exceptional Star: The Life of Otto Struve," Griffith Observer, 51(September 1987):3-11.
12. Otto Struve, "Footnote to History," Science, 129 (1959) :60.
13. Otto Struve, Autobiographical Materials, Bancroft Library, ID
number 67/135.
14. T. G. Cowling, "Otto Struve 1897-1963," Biographical Memoirsof the Fellows of the Royal Society, 10 (1964):283-304, p. 284.
15. Sarah Kuiper Lansberg, "Stories told by or about Dr. Otto
Struve," unpublished notes, 1963?.
16. F. D. M. (only author's initials given), "New Honors for Dr.
Struve, the Wisconsin Astronomer Who Once Was Russia's Man withouta Country," Milwaukee Journal, May 9, 1937. Obtained from Yerkes
Observatory Archives.
17. Richard Luckett, The White Generals: An Account of the White
Movement and the Russian Civil War (New York: Viking, 197l):34954, 381-84.
18. By coincidence, a student and colleague of Wilhelm Struve
was Wilhelm Wrangel, who became a Russian admiral. See Joseph
Ashbrook, "The Crucial Years of Wilhelm Struve," Sky and Telescope,
25 (June 1963):326-27. Peter Wrangel was a descendent of Wilhelm
Wrangel.
19. Luckett, note 17, p. 384.
20. Edwin Bryant Frost, An Astronomer's Life (Boston and New
York: Houghton Mifflin, 1933):255-56.
21. Paul Guthnick to Edwin B. Frost, December 25, 1920, Yerkes
Observatory Archives. Original in German.
22. Eva Struve to Edwin B. Frost, April 11, 1921, Yerkes Observatory Archives.
23. Edwin B. Frost, "A Family of Astronomers. Hermann Struve,
1854-1920; Ludwig Struve, 1858-1920," Popular Astronomy, 29 (1921):53641, p. 539.
According to Gleb Struve (Otto's second cousin), Peter Struve(Gleb's father) may have played a role in putting Otto in touchwith Frost. Peter Struve was an advisor to Generals Denikin and376

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS

Wrangel and traveled back and forth from Berlin to southern Russia during the Civil War (letter of Alan Batten to K. Krisciunas, July27, 1988). He was also a prolific writer on economic and politicalmatters. See two-volume biography by Richard Pipes, Struve: Liberalon the Left (1870-1905) and Struve: Liberal on the Right (1905-1944)(Harvard University Press, 1970 and 1980). Peter Struve's collected
works, numbering 663 items, were published in a fifteen-volume
edition in 1970 by University Microfilms.
24. Edwin B. Frost to Otto Struve, March 2, 1921, Bancroft Library, ID number 67/135. A copy exists in the Yerkes Observatory
Archives.
25. Otto Struve to Edwin B. Frost, April 28, 1921, Yerkes Observatory Archives.
26. Otto Struve to Edwin B. Frost, March 11, 1921, Yerkes Observatory Archives. Original in German.
27. Otto Struve to Edwin B. Frost, April 12, 1921, Yerkes Observatory Archives.
28. Edwin B. Frost to Harry Pratt Judson, April 14, 1921, Yerkes
Observatory Archives.
29. Edwin B. Frost, note 23, pp. 540-41.
30. Edwin B. Frost to Alexander Kaznakoff, October 10, 1921,
Yerkes Observatory Archives.
31. Cowling, note 14, p. 285. According to Cowling, who is probably basing his version on notes from Mary Struve, Otto arrived in
Wisconsin wearing a green hat, blue coat, brown trousers, and tan
shoes. In any case, he must have been quite a sight!
32. Edwin B. Frost, note 20, p. 256.
33. There is some confusion as to the number of Otto's sisters.
Did he have one or two? In Guthnick's letter to Frost, note 21
above, it states, "eine jiingere Schwester vor den Augen des Vaters
und eines Bruders beim Baden ertrunken," meaning "a younger
sister [of Otto] drowned right within view of [her] father and brother."This could mean "a sister younger than Otto" or "the younger of
Otto's two sisters." Given that the drowning was known to Guthnick,it must have been known to Eva Struve in Berlin (Otto's aunt).
Another sister must have existed, for in the letter of Eva Struve to
Frost (note 22), dated April 11, 1921, it says, "My nephew's motherand sister are at Simferopol in Crimea." Also, in Sokolovskaya's
article on Ludwig Struve in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, she

OTTO STRUVE

377

refers to a six-year-old sister of Otto dying in 1919, and refers to
Otto's brother Werner and another sister.
34. S. Chandrasekhar, interview by Kevin Krisciunas, October 6,
1987, American Institute of Physics, Oral History Project, p. 20.
35. Naomi Greenstein, "Reminiscences of Otto and Mary Struve,"
cassette tape monologue of January 21, 1988, as suggested by a listof questions prepared by Kevin Krisciunas. American Institute ofPhysics, Oral History Project.
36. Letter of Donald E. Osterbrock to Kevin Krisciunas, July 9,
1988. Osterbrock attributes this to Su-Shu Huang, who worked with
Struve in Berkeley.
37. Interview of Paul and Helen Jose, Fort Davis, Texas, January
15, 1988, by Kevin Krisciunas and James Sweitzer. The Joses did
graduate work in astronomy at the University of Michigan in theearly 1930s. Paul Jose worked at McDonald Observatory in the late
1940s and the 1950s. They still own the Struves' incredibly long
dining room table and eleven of the original twelve chairs, which
Mary and Otto Struve had at House A at the observatory. More on
Paul Jose is to be found in Evans and Mulholland's book (note 45).
38. Otto's mother died on October 1, 1964, at the age of ninety.
Mary Struve was discovered to have died on August 5, 1966. The
estimated date of death was July 19. The cause of her (natural)
death could not be determined. (Death certificates obtained fromthe Alameda County, California, recorder.) I am told by a numberof sources that after World War II Mary Struve was very much a
recluse.
39. Dernieres Nouvelles (Paris), No. 614, 1922, in Russian.
40. Materials pertaining to the Astronomers Relief Committee
were obtained from the Yerkes Observatory Archives.
41. The most complete published list is by A. Unsold in Mitteilungender Astronomischen Gesellschaft (1963, pp. 5-22), which lists 444 papers and abstracts, with references to data published in Harvard
Cards, and observatory reports. However, in the Bancroft Library at
Berkeley there is Struve's own list compiled in early 1962, which is
876 items long. We must subtract two from that list because they
are errata, and four more because they are the second halves ofarticles published in Sky and Telescope. But we must add three books,
twenty-one items- in Unsold's list, one from Popular Astronomy, andtwelve articles from Sky and Telescope (May 1962 to April 1963),

378

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS

hence the number 907. About 8 percent of these are abstracts andobservatory reports.
42. The most prolific astronomer, according to the number ofpublished items, was Ernst Opik (1893-1985), who published 1,094
items. Letter of John McFarland, librarian at Armagh Observatory,
to K. Krisciunas, February 27, 1986.
43. Full references to Struve's published work are included in
the selected bibliography at the end of this memoir.
44. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, An Autobiography and Other Recollections, ed. Katherine Haramundanis. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984): 169.
45. David S. Evans and J. Derral Mulholland, Big and Bright: A
History of the McDonald Observatory (Austin: University of Texas Press,
1986).
46. Bengt Stromgren, interview by Lillian Hoddeson and Gordon
Baym, May 6 and 13, 1976, American Institute of Physics, Oral History Project, pp. 26, 46.
47. W. W. Morgan, interview by David DeVorkin, August 8-9,
1978, American Institute of Physics, Oral History Project, p. 13.
48. E. A. Milne, "On the Award of the Gold Medal to Professor
Otto Struve, Director of the Yerkes and McDonald Observatories,"Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 194 (1944) :112-20, p.
117. One is reminded of the twentieth century Indian mathematician Ramanujan, for whom "every positive integer was one of his
personal friends." See James R. Newman, "Srinivasa Ramanujan," inThe World of Mathematics, ed. James R. Newman (New York: Simonand Schuster, 1956):368-376, p. 375.
49. Otto Struve and Velta Zebergs, Astronomy of the 20th Century(New York and London: Macmillan, 1962):305-12.
50. Margherita Hack, "Epsilon Aurigae," Scientific American (October 1984):89-105. See also 1982-1984 Eclipse of Epsilon Aurigae,
ed. Robert E. Stencel (Washington, D.C.: NASA, 1985), NASA Conference Publication 2384.
51. Chandrasekhar interview, 1987, note 34, p. 9.
52. G. H. Herbig, "Introduction: A Personal and Scientific Appreciation of Otto Struve," in Spectroscopic Astrophysics: An Assessmentof the Contributions of Otto Struve, ed. G. H. Herbig. (Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1970):l-3, p. 2.
53. W. W. Morgan, interview by Kevin Krisciunas, October 7, 1987.

OTTO STRUVE

379

54. S. Chandrasekhar, interview by Spencer Weart, May 17-18,
1977, American Institute of Physics, Oral History Project, p. 70.
55. Jesse Greenstein, "Otto Struve," cassette tape monologue [July]
1988, American Institute of Physics, Oral History Project, p. 6.
56. Chandrasekhar interview, 1987, note 34, pp. 14-15.
57. W. H. McCrea, "Clustering of Astronomers," Annual Review ofAstronomy and Astrophysics, 25 (1987):l-22, p . 13.
58. J. B. Hearnshaw, The Analysis of Starlight: One Hundred andFifty Years of Astronomical Spectroscopy (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-

versity Press, 1986):337.
59. Morgan interview, 1978, note 47, p. 13.
60. Evans and Mulholland, note 45, p. 31. See also del et Terre(1934):97-100 and (1935):17O.
61. Struve had wanted Stromgren to come for three years, butthey agreed that it would be half that. It was agreed from the start
to be a temporary appointment. Stromgren interview, 1976, note
46, pp. 29, 48.
62. David H. DeVorkin, "The Maintenance of a Scientific Institution: Otto Struve, the Yerkes Observatory, and Its Optical Bureau
during the Second World War," Minerva 18 (Winter 1980):595-623.
63. Otto Struve, "Cooperation in Astronomy," Scientific Monthly
50 (1940):142-47; DeVorkin, note 62, pp. 603-4; Evans and Mulholland,note 45, pp. 98-100.
64. Leo Goldberg, "The Founding of Kitt Peak," Sky and Telescope,65 (March 1983):228-32.
65. Chandrasekhar interview, 1987, note 34, p. 25.
66. After his success in building the 100-inch telescope at Mount
Wilson, Hale gave up the directorship in 1922. W. S. Adams succeeded him in this role, but as the person in charge of operations.
Hale continued on as "honorary director in charge of policy." SeeHelen Wright, Explorer of the University: A Biography of George Ellery

Hale (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1966) :345.
67. Chandrasekhar interview, 1977, note 54, p. 71.
68. Sarah Kuiper Lansberg, interview by Kevin Krisciunas, January 16, 1988.
69. Cowling, note 14, p. 292.
70. Otto Struve to Mary Struve, January 5, 1949, Bancroft Library.
71. Chandrasekhar interview, 1987, note 34, p. 26.

380

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS

72. A. van Hoof, "The Beta Canis Majoris Stars," in Herbig, note
52, pp. 343-63, 361.
73. Ruth S. Freitag to Kevin Krisciunas, February 23, 1988.
74. A. I. Slastenov, Astronomy at the University of Khar'kov over 150
Years (in Russian) (Khar'kov: Khar'kovskogo gosudarstvennogo
universiteta imeni A. M. Gor'kogo, 1955):64-66, p. 64. See also
Vladimir Kourganoff, "Otto Struve: Scientist and Humanist," Sky
and Telescope, 75 (April 1988):379-81; and Kevin Krisciunas, "MoreAbout Otto Struve," Sky and Telescope 76 (September 1988):229-30.
Let us consider the grammatical structure of the first sentenceof the quote ". . . having betrayed his native land, he went abroadand settled in the USA." Given the temporal ordering of thesethree clauses, "having betrayed his native land" came before his
emigration, and so it must refer to Struve's activity as an officer in
the White Russian Army. (I thank Prof. Kourganoff for his help inclarifying the original Russian.)
75. Death certificate obtained from Alameda County, California,
recorder.
76. Beverly T. Lynds, interview by Kevin Krisciunas, August 12,
1988.
77. David S. Heeschen, letter to K. Krisciunas, August 12, 1988.
The 300-foot transit telescope at NRAO met its demise on November 15, 1988. See Gerrit L. Verschuur, "Reminiscences of the 300Foot," Sky and Telescope, 77 (March 1989):252-53.
78. Otto Struve to I. I. Rabi, October 31, 1961, Bancroft Library.
79. S. Chandrasekhar, "Otto Struve. 1897-1963," AstrophysicalJournal,
139 (February 15, 1964) :423.
80. Sky and Telescope, 68 (October 1984) :312.
81. Bart J. Bok, "Otto Struve Memorial Symposium," Sky and Telescope, 32 (August 1966):68-71.
82. M. Hack, ed., Modern Astrophysics: A Memorial to Otto Struve(Paris: Gauthier-Villars, and New York: Gordon and Breach, 1967).
83. A. H. Batten, ed., Extended Atmospheres and Circumstellar Matterin Spectroscopic Binary Systems (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1973). IAU Symposium 51 (Struve Memorial Symposium).
84. See G. H. Gerbig, ed., note 52.
85. J. Greenstein, note 55, p. 4.
86. J. Greenstein, note 55, pp. 4-5.

OTTO STRUVE

381

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY1922
Aid to Russian scientists (in Russian). Dernieres Nouvelles (Paris), no.
614.
1923
On the spectroscopic binary 13 y Ursae Minoris. Pop. Astron. 38:90-91.
Notes on two stars having variable bright lines. Astrophys.J. 58:138-40.
On the double star 9 Argus. Astrophys.J. 58:141-48.
1924
On the nature of spectroscopic binaries of short period. Astrophys. J.
60:167-74.
1925
On the calcium clouds. I. Pop. Astron. 33:639-53.
1926
On the calcium clouds. II. Pop. Astron. 34:1-14.
With E. B. Frost and S. B. Barrett. Radial velocities of 368 heliumstars.
A study of the nature of spectroscopic binaries. Mon. Not. R, Astron.
Soc. 86:63-76.
A study of spectroscopic binaries of short period. Abstr. Theses: Univ.
Chicago Sci. Ser. 1923-24 2:57-60.

With G. Struve. The facts concerning Otto Struve's work on ^ Cancri(1840-75)./. R. Astron. Soc. Canada 20:87-92.
Review of "Stellar atmospheres," by C. H. Payne. Astrophys. J. 64:204—8.
1927
Interstellar calcium. Astrophys. J. 65:163-99.
An unusual spectroscopic binary (27 Canis Majoris). Astrophys. J.
65:273-85.
On the period of 27 Canis Majoris. Astrophys. J. 66:113-21.
1928
Further work on interstellar calcium. Astrophys. J. 67:353-90.

382

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS1929
With B. P. Gerasimovich. Physical properties of a gaseous substratum of the Galaxy. Astrophys. J. 69:7-33.
The Stark effect in stellar spectra. Astrophys. J. 69:173-95.
Pressure effects in stellar spectra. Astrophys. J. 70:85-104.
The Stark effect as a means of determining comparative absolutemagnitudes. Astrophys. J. 70:237-42.
With G. A. Shajn. On the rotation of the stars. Mon. Not. R. Astron.
Soc. 89:222-39.
The determination of stellar distances from the intensities of thedetached calcium line K. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 89:567-89.
With E. B. Frost and S. B. Barrett. Radial velocities of 500 stars ofspectral class A. Publ. Yerkes Obs. 7:1-79.
1930
With C. T. Elvey. Preliminary results of spectrographic observationsof 7 e Aurigae. Astrophys. J. 71:136-49.
On the axial rotation of stars. Astrophys. J. 72:1-18.
With C. T. Elvey. A study of stellar hydrogen lines and their relation
to the Stark effect. Astrophys. J. 72:277-300.
With A. Unsold and C. T. Elvey. Zur Deutung der interstellaren
Calciumlinien. Z. Astrophys. 1:314-25.
1931
A study of the spectra of B-type stars. Astrophys. J. 74:225-67.
With C. T. Elvey. Algol and stellar rotation. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.
91:663-75.
1932
With P. Swings. On the interpretation of the emission lines in starsof early spectral class. Astrophys. J. 75:161-84.
1933
The problem of classifying stellar spectra. Astrophys. J. 78:73-86.
1934
With P. C. Keenan, and J. A. Hynek. Color temperatures of B-typestars and Rayleigh scattering. Astrophys. J. 79:1-7.
With C. T. Elvey. The intensities of stellar absorption lines. Astrophys.
J. 79:409-40.

OTTO STRUVE

383

1935
The spectrum of P Cygni. Astrophys. J. 81:66-96.
A test of thermodynamic equilibrium in the atmospheres of earlytype stars. Astrophys. J. 82:252-67.
Freedom of thought in astronomy. Sci. Mon. 40:250-56.
Some new trends in stellar spectroscopy. Pop. Astron. 43:483-96,
559-68, 628-39. (Reprinted with additions in Astronomy of the 20th
Century, 1962.)

Letter to the editor, del Terre 51:170.
1936
With C. T. Elvey. Photometric observations of some of Barnard's
dark nebulae. Astrophys. J. 83:162-72.
With H. Story. The scattering of light in diffuse nebulae. Astrophys.
J. 84:203-18.
With C. T. Elvey and F. E. Roach. Reflection nebulae. Astrophys. J.
84:219-28.
1937
On the interpretation of the surface brightness of diffuse galactic
nebulae. Astrophys. J. 85:194-212.
With G. P. Kuiper and B. Stromgren. The interpretation of 8 Aurigae.
Astrophys. J. 86:570-612.
1938
With G. van Biesbroeck and C. T. Elvey. The 150-foot nebular spectrograph of the McDonald Observatory. Astrophys. J. 87:559-67.
With K. Wurm. The excitation of absorption lines in outer atmospheric shells of stars. Astrophys. J. 88:84—109.
Edwin Brant Frost, 1866-1935. In Biographical Memoirs, vol. 29, pp.
25-51. New York: Columbia University for the National Academyof Sciences.
The observation and interpretation of stellar absorption lines. Pop.
Astron. 46:431-51, 497-509.
La constitution des nebuleuses par reflexion. Ann. Astrophys. 1:143-72.
1939
With C. T. Elvey. Observations made with the nebular spectrographof the McDonald Observatory. Astrophys. J. 89:119-24 and 89:51725

384

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRSWith C. T. Elvey and W. Linke. Observations made with the nebular
spectrograph of the McDonald Observatory. III. Astrophys. J. 90:301308.
The ultraviolet spectra of A and B stars. Astrophys. J. 90:699-726.
Stars with extended atmospheres. Proc. Am. Philos. Soc. 81:211-51.
The dedication of McDonald Observatory. Science 89:493-99.
1940
With P. Swings. Spectrographic observations of peculiar stars. Astrophys.
J. 91:546-620.
Cooperation in astronomy. Sci. Mon. 50:142-47.
1941
With P. Swings. The evolution of a peculiar stellar spectrum:
Andromedae (with a note on IC 4997). Astrophys. J. 93:356-67.
With P. Swings. Spectrographic observations of peculiar stars. II.
Astrophys. J. 94:291-319.
The constitution of diffuse matter in interstellar space. (Joseph Henry
lecture at Washington Philosophical Society, March 29, 1941.) /.
Wash. Acad. Sci. 31:217-58.
1942
Extended stellar atmospheres: A review of the problems of gaseousshells. Astrophys. J. 95:134-51.
With P. Swings. Spectrographic observations of peculiar stars. HI.
Astrophys. J. 95:152-60.
With P. Swings. Spectrographic observations of peculiar stars. IV.
Astrophys. J. 96:254-71.
The Poulkovo Observatory. Sky Telesc. 1:3-4, 19.
1943
With P. Swings. Spectrographic observations of peculiar stars. V.
Astrophys. J. 97:194-225.
With P. Swings. Spectrographic observations of peculiar stars. VI.
Astrophys. J. 98:91-7
With P. Swings. The spectrum of a a 2 Canum Venaticorum. Astrophys.
J. 98:361-497.
Fifty years of progress in astronomy. Pop. Astron. 51:469-81.
The W. J. McDonald Observatory of the University of Texas. Publ.
Astron. Soc. Pac. 55:123-35.

OTTO STRUVE

385

1944
The spectrographic problem of U Cephei. Astrophys. J. 99:222-38.
Recent progress in the interpretation of stellar spectra. Rev. Mod.
Phys. 16:286-300.
1945
Spectrographic observations of 13 eclipsing binaries. Astrophys. J.
102:74-127.
With P. Swings. Spectrographic observations of peculiar stars. VII.
Astrophys. J. 102:224-31.

The cosmogonical significance of stellar rotation. Pop. Astron. 53:20118, 259-76.
1946
The effect of diluted stellar radiation upon the spectra of astronomical objects. Physica 12:739-60.
1947
With G. A. Shajn. The absorption continuum in the violet region of
the spectra of carbon stars. Astrophys. J. 106:86-91.
The story of an observatory. Pop. Astron. 55:227-44, 283-94.
1948
J. S. Plaskett's star of large mass, HD47129. Astrophys. J. 107:327-36.
Whirlpools of gas around binary systems. (Bruce Medal lecture.)
Publ. Astron. Soc. Pac. 60:160-73.

The scientific work of Dr. Joel Stebbins. Pop. Astron. 56:287-95.
1949
With M. Rudkj0bing. Stellar spectra with emission lines in the obscuring clouds of Ophiuchus and Scorpius. Astrophys. J. 109:92-4.
Spectroscopic binaries. (George Darwin lecture.) Mon. Not. R. Astron.
Soc. 109:487-506.
1950
Stellar Evolution: An Exploration from the Observatory. (The 1949 Lewis

Clark Vanuxem Lectures.) Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
1951
The analysis of stellar spectra. In Astrophysics: A Topical Symposium
Commemorating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Yerkes Observatory and a

386

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRSHalf Century of Progress in Astrophysics, ed. J. A. Hynek, pp. 85-144.
New York: McGraw-Hill.
1952
Award of the Bruce Gold Medal to Dr. S. Chandrasekhar. Publ.
Astron. Soc. Pac. 64:55-61.
The present state of our knowledge of the p Canis Majoris or P
Cephei stars. Ann. Astrophys. 15:157-68.
What I don't know about flying saucers. The Griffith Observer 16:138-40.
1953
With S.-S. Huang. A study of line profiles: the spectrum of p Leonis.
Astrophys. J. 118:463-76.
1954
With S.-S. Huang. Stellar rotation. Ann. Astrophys. 17:85-93.
Evolrutsira Zvezd-Dannye Nablrudenii i ikh Istolkovanie. (Translation by A. G. Massevich of 1950 book Stellar Evolution: An Explorationfrom the Observatory.) Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Inostr. Liter. 285 pp.
Lomonosov. Sky Telesc. 13:118-20.
1955
Can we hope to detect evolutionary changes of single stars? Publ.
Astron. Soc. Pac. 67:29-33.
The International Astronomical Union. (Address by the President
at the opening of the IAU at the Ninth General Assembly in
Dublin, August 29, 1955.) Sky Telesc. 14:492-95. (Also, Trans. Int.
Astron. Union 9(1957):11-16.)
1956
Epsilon Aurigae. Publ. Astron. Soc. Pac. 68:27-37.
1957
About a Russian astronomer. Sky Telesc. 16:379-81.
"The royal road to success": Henry Norris Russell (1877-1957). Publ.
Astron. Soc. Pac. 69:223-26.
1958
With J. Sahade and S.-S. Huang. Plaskett's star, HD 47129. Astrophys.
J. 127:148-59.
With S.-S. Huang. Spectroscopic binaries. Handb. Phys. 50:243-73.

OTTO STRUVE

387

The Astronomical Universe. Eugene, Oregon: Oregon State System ofHigher Education. 55 pp.
The problem of P Lyrae. (Henry Norris Russell lecture at American
Astronomy Society meeting, Urbana, Illinois, August 1956.) Publ.
Astron. Soc. Pac. 70:5-40.
G. A. Shajn and Russian astronomy. Sky Telesc. 17:272-74.
Some possible evidence of evolution in individual stars. Shy Telesc.
18:74-76, 86.
1959Footnote to history. Science 129:60.
With B. Lynds and H. Pillans. Elementary Astronomy. New York: Oxford University Press. 396 pp.
Reflections of a spectroscopist. Sky Telesc. 19:7-10.
1960
With R. M. Emberson and J. W. Findlay. The 140-foot radio telescope of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Publ. Astron.
Soc. Pac. 72:439-58.
With S.-S. Huang. Stellar rotation and atmospheric turbulence. In
Stellar Atmospheres, vol. 6, Stars and Stellar Systems, ed. J. L. Greenstein,pp. 321-368. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
1962
The Universe. (Karl Taylor Compton 1959 lectures.) Cambridge, Mass.:
MIT Press. 159 pp.
With V. Zebergs. Astronomy of the 20th Century. New York and London: Macmillan. 544 pp.
1963
Comments on stellar spectra. Astrophys. J. 137:1306-8.
1969
With M. Hack. Stellar Spectroscopy: Normal Stars. Trieste, Italy: Osservatorio
Astronomico di Trieste. 203 pp.
1970
With M. Hack. Stellar Spectroscopy: Peculiar Stars. Trieste, Italy: Osservatorio
Astronomico di Trieste. 317 pp. (These last two volumes, which I havecounted as a single item in Struve's publication list, came from amanuscript originally completed by Struve in 1962. The work wasrevised by Margherita Hack and includes material as recent as 1968.)