Bates and Harvey Mudd Aeronautics Heritage Library

The research collections of the Bates and Harvey Mudd Aeronautics Heritage Library include several book collections with special emphasis on Southern California and Los Angeles County. The most noteworthy of these are the Raymond Goodall Collection on the early history of aviation, aeronautical engineering, and the aviation industry, and the Iris Critchell Collection, which is particularly strong on the history of women in aviation, and on the development of flying in the 1930s and 1940s. Among the Library's archival holdings the most noteworthy is the photographic collection of Roy Wolford, chief photographer for Los Angeles County-based aviation pioneer Jack Northrop. The several thousand images in the collection document the development and first flights of many Northrop-designed aircraft, beginning in the the second decade of the 20th century, including Northrop's own photograph album from 1919, and with special emphasis on the period from the mid-1930s to the late 1950s, with many unique images of the Northrop flying wings.