Paul Ehrenfest papers

Collection — Multiple Containers

Identifier: 8407

Scope and content

Family papers include letters and postcards from Paul Ehrenfest (1880-1933), to and from Hugo Ehrenfest, to Paul Ehrenfest (1908-2004), to Fritz Ehrenfest, from Tania Ehrenfest (wife or daughter of Paul). Also postcard to Hugo from Paul, signed by Arthur Compton, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, and others, 1927; postcard to Fritz Ehrenfest from Niels Bohr and others, 1929; letter from Enrico Fermi, 1938; and two letters from Samuel Goudsmit, 1977. Clippings, especially relating to Paul Ehrenfest's death in 1933. Hugo Ehrenfest's sketchbook of a trip to Japan, 1896 and a photograph. Photographs and certificates.

Scope and content

Also travel scrapbook, 1947 for a trip to the western U.S., probably compiled by Elizabeth Knapp and travel and tourism brochures, guidebooks, and ephemera collected by Paul and Elizabeth.

Dates

1896-1977.

Creator

Ehrenfest, Paul, 1908-2004. (Person)
Ehrenfest, Hugo. (Person)
Ehrenfest, Paul, 1880-1933. (Person)
Ehrenfest, Tatiana, 1876-1964. (Person)
Bohr, Niels, 1885-1962. (Person)
Fermi, Enrico, 1901-1954. (Person)
Goudsmit, Samuel A. (Samuel Abraham), 1902-1978. (Person)

Language of Material

In English.

Biographical / Historical

Paul Ehrenfest graduated from the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell in 1932. He was the son of Dr. Hugo Ehrenfest, who was born in Vienna, one of five brothers. Hugo's youngest brother was the physicist Paul Ehrenfest. Hugo became a physician, came to the U.S. in 1900 and married Sophie Schwal. They had three children, Ellen, Paul, and Fritz. He served as Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at St. Louis School of Medicine, Obstetrician and Gynecologist and at Jewish Hospital; Medical Director of St. Louis Obstetric Dispensary, Consulting Obstetrician at St. Louis Maternity Hospital, and Fellow of the American Gynecological Society. He authored a book, Birth Injuries of the Child in 1922. Hugo died in 1942. The physicist Paul Ehrenfest committed suicide in 1933.