Armour Research Foundation slides, 1940

Armour Research Foundation (ARF) was one of the first private, not-for-profit contract research laboratories in the United States. Begun in Chicago in 1936 by Armour Institute of Technology (AIT), ARF was acquired by Illinois Institute of Technology in 1940 when IIT was created by the merger of AIT and Lewis Institute. Re-named Armour Research Foundation of Illinois Institute of Technology, it was later reorganized as the IIT Research Institute (IITRI). Under all its iterations, the laboratory conducted research for commercial and government sources, and much of its staff came from AIT and IIT. Some slides relate to Signal Corp, Radar, and ESMWT classes we taught by Illinois Institute of Technology during World War II at the request of the U.S. military.

3 ¼" x 4" glass slides bound in either black or red tape used by the ARF for presentations. Some slides have commercial mounts reading "Bond Slide Co., Inc. Chicago" and "Chicago Slide Co., 6 E. Lake St. Chicago." Box 1 images bulk with graphs, technical charts, gauges, a telephone switchboard including images of people using or studying the equipment are included. The box top label in Box 2 read "(Slots) 1 - 19 Signal Corps School" and "Andres Paper - Signal Training" for slot 20. Slides with black taped edges in this box included images of male students in classrooms and electronics laboratories; 1 or 2 women and professors; rooms of equipment in cabinets and on tables. Slides with red taped edges included charts titled "America After Two Years of War", "Pre-Radar Radio & Mathematics Grades", "RCA Dynamic Demonstrator" with women sitting in the room, floor plan of the "Cicero ESMWT [Engineering, Science, and Management War Training] Building", and an auditorium full of men in military uniform. Two images in the box may be unrelated to the rest - one of a man photographing a woman in front of a house/office and one of a man and car.

Henry T. Heald Papers includes various files re ESMWT program.

Available for Research

Catherine Bruck, University Archivist February 18, 1999

was 1993.004

• Subject
  • Electrical engineering
  • Radar
  • World War, 1939-1945
• NamesUnited States. Army. Signal Corps