International Solar Energy Society (ISES) Collection

Collection

Identifier: MS MSS 19

Scope and Content Note

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This collection consists of a comprehensive body of material covering the period 1954-1974 and is divided into ten series. The bulk of the material pertains to the early history of the International Solar Energy Society when it was known as the Association for Applied Solar Energy (AFASE).

Important groupings that help describe the history and structure of the organization as well as its affiliations with the Stanford Research Institute and Arizona State University include the Correspondence sub-series of Series I: Administrative and Series II: Board of Directors. In addition, a folder of historical materials on AFASE collected by the organization itself can be found in the Miscellaneous sub-series of Series I: Administrative. Records of various administrative meetings of AFASE, located in Series II: Board of Directors, are also helpful. Groupings that include documentation on important activities of AFASE/ISES are Series I: Administrative; Series III: Library; Series IV: Meetings/Conferences; and Series VII: Publishing/Printed Matter. Within these series are documents addressing an AFASE architectural competition, solar house construction, solar furnace designs, and the World Symposium of Applied Solar Energy held in Phoenix November 1-5, 1955.

Dates

Creation: 1954-1974

Language of Materials

Material in English

Access Restrictions

To view this collection, make an appointment at least five business days prior to your visit by contacting Ask an Archivist or calling (480) 965-4932. Appointments in the Design and the Arts Special Collections Reading Room at the Design and the Arts Library on the Tempe campus are available Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Copyright

Arizona State University does not own the copyright to this collection. We recognize that it is incumbent upon the researcher to procure permission to publish information from this collection from the owner of the copyright.

Historical Note

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On March 17, 1954, a group of prominent Arizonans including former Governor J. Howard Pyle, Arizona State University President Grady Gammage, Arizona Public Service President Walter T. Lucking, Valley National Bank Chairman of the Board Walter Simson, local businessman Robert Herberger, and Phoenix attorney Frank Snell joined forces with the Stanford Research Institute of Menlo Park, California, to form the Association for Applied Solar Energy in Phoenix, Arizona. Established as a non-profit scientific and educational corporation, AFASE sought to promote research into new methods of utilizing solar energy and to improve efficiency of existing solar technology.

Battling financial difficulties from its inception, AFASE nevertheless sponsored a series of meetings and conferences throughout the 1950s, most notably the 1955 World Symposium on Applied Solar Energy held in Phoenix. A solar energy library established in 1956 grew to contain approximately 5,000 items, including periodical articles, patents, books, and papers from research organizations and educational institutions. Several bibliographies were published in the 1950s and 1960s. The Association also published two periodicals devoted exclusively to solar energy research, The Sun at Work, founded in 1956, and Solar Energy: The Journal of Solar Energy, Science, and Engineering, founded in 1957.

Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, AFASE sponsored architectural and solar furnace design competitions. The most important research project of this period was the design and construction of a solar house in Phoenix. A technical success but a financial failure, the solar house contributed to the Association's financial difficulties and resulted in its continued dependence on the support of the Stanford Research Institute. By the end of 1957, financial arrangements between AFASE and SRI had been placed on a non-cash basis, but the Association soon recovered with the assistance of a National Science Foundation Grant in early 1959.

On January 1, 1960, the Association for Applied Solar Energy became affiliated with Arizona State University at Tempe. Though ASU offered housing and staff to assist with the AFASE library and publications, the Association remained separate administratively and retained its own board of directors. The affiliation between AFASE (later renamed the International Solar Energy Society or ISES) and ASU continued until 1970 when the organization relocated to Australia.

Full extent

17 Box(es)

Full extent

25 Cubic Feet

Additional description

Abstract

This collection consists of a comprehensive body of material documenting the early history of the International Solar Energy Society when it was known as the Association for Applied Solar Energy (AFASE). Materials in the collection date from 1954 to 1974. It is divided into ten series: Series I: Administrative, Series II: Board of Directors, Series III: Library, Series IV: Meetings, V: Newsclippings, Series VI: Photographs, Series VII: Publishing/Printed Matter, Series VIII: Research Files, Series IX: Stanford Research Institute, and Series X: Oversized Items.

Arrangement

This collection consists of seventeen boxes divided into ten series:

Sub-Sub-Series i: Academic Researchers
Sub-Sub-Series ii: Corporate Researchers
Sub-Sub-Series iii: Individual Researchers
Sub-Sub-Series iv: Miscellaneous

Provenance

The ISES collection was donated by the International Solar Energy Society in 1971 after its relocation to Australia. Several minor additions to the collection have been donated over the years by ISES members.

Processing Note

Processed by Teresa Baker in September of 1994; Updated by Harold Housley in October of 2015.

Due to several moves over the years, much of the original order of the material was lost. Any discernible original order for various record types was maintained whenever possible. One particular series, Series VI: Photographs, exhibited extreme disarray, with most items unidentified and separated from other seemingly pertinent record types. A dedicated researcher may be able to identify some photos by matching identifying designations (often located on the backs of those items) to the origin column of the AFASE slide directory located in Series III: Library. A significant number of photos depicting solar devices, graphs, and charts appear to be associated with the two primary AFASE publications, The Sun at Work and Solar Energy: The Journal of Solar Energy, Science, and Engineering. Some of these items could be matched with specific articles and, thus, were grouped with Series VII: Publishing/Printed Matter and Sub-Series E: Journal of Solar Energy Article Illustrations.