PBA Galleries

Typed or handwritten, each with original mailing envelope.

The earliest letter is from David Pickering, in East Orange, New Jersey, advising the 16-year old Dick Bateman that "observing variables requires practice and lots of patience, but you will never regret the time and trouble you may expend..." In 1945, the head of the Department of Astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, writes to then 1st Lieutenant Bateman about his interest in the graduate program at Cal, cautioning that "There is very little demand for the services of a theoretical astronomer. On the other had there are very few training for such work." The final letter, from September, 11, 1952, from Paul Herget at the Cincinnati Observatory, cannot promise Bateman a position at the observatory, but "above all, I do not wish to discourage you from entering upon a program of graduate study in celestial mechanics..." A interesting series of letters indicating the energy with which Richard Bateman pursued his lifelong passion.