Inside the Community

This book is a collection of articles about women and men in the Caltech community, written by Laura Marcus, wife of Caltech professor of chemistry and Nobel laureate Rudy Marcus. The articles draw on oral history interviews she conducted as well as archival research. Twenty-five of the articles appeared in three different publications: Caltech Women's Club Bulletin, Caltech News, and On Campus, between 1987 and 1999; eight other articles are almost all previously unpublished, and thirty-one illustrations accompany the text. Edited by their son Kenneth Marcus and Rudy, Inside the Community shows how the women and men of Caltech created an exceptional community of science and engineering, whose members shared common interests and social bonds. With a foreword by Professor of Chemistry Harry Gray and Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and Provost David Tirrell.

Laura Marcus, wife of Caltech professor of chemistry and Nobel laureate Rudy Marcus, set out to write a series of articles on people who made up the Caltech community. Few of her subjects had been written on at any length before, hence "untold stories," which required oral history interviews and background research to bring out those stories. The result was twenty-five articles, which appeared in Caltech publications Caltech Women's Club Bulletin, Caltech News, and On Campus over a twelve-year period (1987-99). Now compiled in one volume and edited by their son Kenneth Marcus and Rudy, Inside the Community: Untold Stories of Women and Men of Caltech comprises a rich array of subjects that chart an era of remarkable growth not only for Caltech but of the community of scholars and their partners who contributed so decisively to Caltech's success. Among the people Laura interviewed were Professor of Mathematics Olga Taussky-Todd, one of the first female tenured professors in Caltech history, and Mabel Beckman, wife of legendary Caltech graduate, professor, inventor and donor, Arnold Beckman. There are articles on one of the founders of Caltech, Professor of Chemistry Arthur Amos Noyes, and on the week in Stockholm, Sweden, when Rudy Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992. Spouses of faculty members and Caltech presidents figure prominently among Laura's subjects, many of whom were members of the Caltech Women's Club, to which Laura belonged. The book also includes eight further articles that she wrote during this period, all of which reflect her ongoing interests in education and community. Only one of these was published previously: on African American Professor of Psychology at Pasadena City College, Barbara Phillips Turner, a member of the Friends of the Pasadena Commission on the Study of Women, of which Laura was also a member. With a foreword by Professor of Chemistry Harry Gray and Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and Provost David Tirrell, and illustrated with thirty-one photographs, drawings and paintings, this collection of articles shows how the women and men of Caltech, and their families, formed an extraordinary research community of science and engineering, whose members shared common interests and social bonds.

Laura Marcus was a writer and historian, with a lifelong interest in the English language, in people, and in literature. Born in Greenville, North Carolina on August 30, 1922, she was the youngest of eight brothers and sisters. Laura attended Greenville High School, where she was a reporter for her high school newspaper, then earned her BA degree at East Carolina Teachers College in 1944 with a double major in English and Business Education. During World War II she worked on the Yugoslav Desk at the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Washington, D.C. When the war ended, she lived in San Francisco for a year, working for the California Teachers Association and auditing classes at the University of California, Berkeley. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Laura met her future husband, Rudolph ("Rudy") Marcus, who had recently relocated from Canada for a postdoc in theoretical chemistry with Professor Oscar Rice. They married six months later in 1949, and moved to New York in 1951 for Rudy's first academic position as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. Laura returned to her university studies and by 1958 had completed the course requirements for a Ph.D. in Sociology at New York University, with a Minor in Social Psychology. Their first son, Alan, was born in 1958, followed by the births of two more sons, Kenneth in 1961 and Raymond in 1962. After Rudy accepted a professorship in chemistry at the University of Illinois, the family moved to Urbana, Illinois in 1964, where they stayed until 1978. Laura studied at the University of Illinois for a Master's degree in American History, which she received in 1972, and completed the course requirements for a Ph.D. in History. A major turning point for the entire family was when Rudy accepted the Arthur Amos Noyes Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, and the family moved to Pasadena in 1978. Over time, Laura began interviewing members of the Caltech community in an attempt to capture the institution's cultural and intellectual environment. In the process she published a series of "untold stories," especially on the spouses of professors and campus presidents, since many of the spouses had rarely been written on at any length before. Laura's health began to decline in 2000 and she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in March 2002. With her love of nature, she selected a spot at Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena, California as her final resting place.