Archival Adventures: The Care and Feeding of Rockets
Archival Adventures: The Care and Feeding of Rockets
It's time for an adventure! This week we're heading to the early- to mid-20th century to learn about the chemistry of rocket fuels with the John D. Clark papers.
John Drury Clark was born August 15, 1907, in Fairbanks, Alaska, to John Albert Clark and Jeanette Ruth Drury. Clark graduated from Fairbanks High School on May 27, 1925. Clark attended the University of Alaska and California Institute of Technology from 1927-1930. He graduated with a B.S. in Physical Chemistry. Clark later received a Master of Science Degree from the University of Wisconsin (1932), and his PhD from Stanford University (1934).
In the early 1930's, Clark worked with General Electric. By 1949, Clark worked with the Naval Air Rocket Program where he had a job until he retired in 1970. Specifically, Clark was the chief chemist at the Naval Air Rocket Test Station and its successor department. He worked in the Liquid Propulsion Laboratory at the Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, New Jersey. Under Clark's direction, a new family of storable high-energy liquid propellants later used in the Apollo program was developed by Navy civilian scientists in 1959.
Clark was married twice, first to soprano singer Mildred Baldwin in 1943. Later he married Inga Pratt, widower of Fletcher Pratt, in 1962. John D. Clark died in July 1988 at age 80 in New Jersey.
Join our community collections archivist, Anthony Wright de Hernandez, for a livestream on Twitch! Every week we explore and discuss materials from Special Collections and University Archives covering topics including university history, NASA pioneers, architecture, science fiction, cooking, LGBTQ+ history, Black history, urban legends, and more. Recordings of previous streams are available on the Libraries' Youtube page.
If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, welcome! Please email library-event-accessibility@groups.office365.vt.edu at least 10 days prior to the event.
- Date:
- Wednesday, February 4, 2026 Show more dates
- Time:
- 3:00pm - 5:00pm
- Audience:
- Advanced Alumni Beginners Faculty/Staff Graduate Students Postdoc Public Undergraduates
- Categories:
- Event > Livestream
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Contact:
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Community Collections Archivist
Special Collections and University Archives (0434)