"Reaching New Heights: The Life and Legacy of Michael W. Friedlander"
Wash Univ. Archives / Library Exhibit about Michael (2023)
Background
The Washington University Archivist, Sonya Rooney, had spoken to Michael circa 2006 about donating his papers to the University, in recognition of his wide-ranging contributions to scholarship and campus life over many decades.
As a result, the family (Jessica, Rachel, and David) were spared simply tossing his papers from his university office and his home office into recycling or trash containers. Thus, in the end, about 45 banker boxes (12x18") filled with his papers were donated to the Archives. Of these, about 15-18 came from his Compton Hall office (which he occupied from 1966 when the building opened until 2018), and the rest were stored at home. The home papers were sorted and boxed mostly in the summer and fall of 2022. For all of the material from the house, David touched nearly every piece of paper, to ascertain whether it belonged in the archives or not (e.g, some papers related to personnel decisions were too sensitive), and provided lists of contents, according to Michael's already detailed organization via manila folders. David also scanned hundreds of pages of documents for his own records, numerous of which were utilized as illustrative figures in this web site.
Sonya brought in a University of Missouri graduate student in museum studies, Emily Alberts, to catalog and organize the collection further. Along the way, Emily became intrigued with the collection and decided to center her 'capstone project' around it, in her last year before graduating.
The exhibit
Thus, Emily, with Sonya's encouragement and assistance, organized a museum exhibit around Michael's papers. This was on display in the Julian Edison Special Collections Reading Room in Olin Library (the five-level main campus library for Washington University) for four months in the summer of 2023 (May 27 to Sept 17).
The exhibit was entitled "Reaching New Heights: The Life and Legacy of Michael W. Friedlander" and consisted of four large display cases in the Special Collections Reading Room in Olin Library. Each case was filled with articles, photographs, and artifacts, along with descriptive captions.
The physical artifacts (books, awards, etc) were borrowed from the family; the family photographs were selected from a gallery David had created at Emily and Sonya's request, and the rest of the articles and photos were from Michael's donated papers (with some being from other parts of the University Archives).
An oversized postcard was sent to parts of the university community, and a small stack of the postcards (featuring 1974 and 1958 photos of Michael) was available in the Reading Room. (This can be seen in the family photo, below.)
Click on display case photos below to read more about each section.
Display Case 1: Committee for Nuclear Information
Display Case 2: WU Observatory, lecture series, more
Display case 2: WU Observatory, lecture series, more
Photo by unknown Wash U photographer with iPhone 14 Pro.
Display Case 3: family, awards, and books written
Display case 3: family, awards, and books
Photo by unknown Wash U photographer with iPhone 14 Pro.
Display Case 4: cosmic rays balloon research
Photos from the opening
More photos (June 5, 2023) in this SmugMug gallery .
The Michael Friedlander Papers
Beyond the exhibit, the papers themselves are available to scholars at the link https://library.wustl.edu/spec/friedlander-papers/ which in turn leads to https://aspace.wustl.edu/repositories/4/resources/970 . (The latter is what is shown in the photo at right.)
The university also supplied a Finding Aid [PDF, 48 pages] which provides a detailed list of what is found in each manila folder in each box.
Photos by David Friedlander except where noted.