Otto Struve
Otto Lyudvigovich Struve was a Russian-American astronomer of Baltic German origin. Otto was the descendant of famous astronomers of the Struve family; he was the son of Ludwig Struve, grandson of Otto Wilhelm von Struve and great-grandson of Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve. He was also the nephew of Karl Hermann Struve.
With more than 900 journal articles and books, Struve was one of the most distinguished and prolific astronomers of the mid-20th century. He served as director of Yerkes, McDonald, Leuschner and National Radio Astronomy Observatories and is credited with raising worldwide prestige and building schools of talented scientists at Yerkes and McDonald observatories. In particular, he hired Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and Gerhard Herzberg who later became Nobel Prize winners. Struve's research was mostly focused on binary and variable stars, stellar rotation and interstellar matter. He was one of the few eminent astronomers in the pre-Space Age era to publicly express a belief that extraterrestrial intelligence was abundant, and so was an early advocate of the search for extraterrestrial life.
Early years in Russia
Struve was born in 1897 in Kharkov, the largest city of Sloboda Ukraine, then Russian Empire, as the first child of Ludwig Struve and Elizaveta Khristoforovna Struve. His father was a member of the prominent Baltic German Struve family. His astronomy experience started early: from the age of eight, he was accompanying father in the telescope tower and from ten carried out some minor observations, despite his fear of the dark spaces. After having received home education, at the age of twelve, Struve started attending a school in Kharkov and showed mathematical talents. Otto was the first child of the Struve family in Russia who attended a Russian-speaking rather than German-speaking school, and was bilingual in German and Russian. After graduating in 1914, he continued his astronomy work. In June 1914, Struve took part in preparations for observation of a total solar eclipse and later used that experience and results for his master's degree work defended in 1919 at Kharkov University.Struve entered the Imperial Kharkov University in 1915, at the time of political unrest and wars in Russia. In the beginning of 1916, just having finished the first semester, he interrupted his studies and enlisted to a military artillery school in St. Petersburg. He passed an accelerated training program, and in February 1917, was sent to the Turkish front. After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed, Struve returned to Kharkov for a year between spring 1918 and spring 1919 and completed a full university course. in June 1919, he received a certificate signed by the rector of Kharkov University stating that Struve would stay with the university to prepare for professorship at the department of astronomy and geodesics. During that time, Struve also worked at the "workshop school of precision mechanics" and obtained a license of a workshop trainer. The workshop was organized by his father with the goal of creating traditions of astronomy engineers in Russia. Those were non-existent and foreign engineers were personally invited from abroad for high-quality mechanical work.
Moving to the United States
The German origin of Struves and the military history of Otto Struve with the White Russian Army took its toll. To avoid repression by the Bolsheviks, his family had to move from Kharkov to Sevastopol which was still under control of the White Army. There, a series of tragedies took away most of the family: the youngest sister Elizabeth drowned, brother Werner died from tuberculosis, and his father died from a stroke on November 4, 1920. Whereas his mother and sister chose to return to Kharkov, on November 16–17, 1920, Otto followed the escaping Wrangel's Army. With a military transport, he escaped from Sevastopol to Turkey. He never returned to Russia. He was later invited several times to conferences in the Soviet Union, but for various reasons declined to attend.During the year and a half that Otto spent in exile in Gallipoli and later in Constantinople, he became an impoverished refugee, eating at relief agencies and taking any job he could find. For some time, he worked as a woodcutter, residing with fellow Russian officers, often 6 people in a tent. One night, a neighboring tent was hit by lightning, killing everyone inside. Struve wrote to his uncle Hermann Struve in Germany for assistance, without knowing that his uncle had died a few months earlier, on August 12, 1920. However, the widow of Hermann, Eva Struve, contacted Paul Guthnick, her late husband's successor at the Berlin-Babelsberg Observatory. Germany itself was suffering after the wars, and there was little chance to obtain a position for a Russian there. Therefore, Guthnick wrote, on December 25, 1920, to the director of Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, Edwin B. Frost asking a position for Struve. He received a reply on January 27, 1921, where Frost promised to do his best. On March 2, 1921, Frost wrote to Struve, offering him a position at Yerkes. Given his situation in Turkey, it was a lucky chance that Struve received that letter. On March 11, Struve sent a reply, thanking Frost for the offer and accepting it. The letter was formally written in English but with German grammar, revealing the poor English proficiency of Struve. Struve also acknowledged that he had no experience in spectral astrophysics. Nevertheless, when applying for his position, Frost mentioned that "I am perfectly willing to take him on his lineage. We regard Otto Struve as a first-class spectroscopist and astrophysicist", and that his degree in Kharkov was equivalent to a doctoral degree. It took several months to arrange for travel documents and funding. In late August 1921, Struve received his visa and travel tickets at the US Consulate in Turkey. In September, he boarded S.S. Hog Island and on October 7, 1921, arrived in New York. He was met there, put on the train, and two days later arrived in Chicago.
Life in the United States
In late 1921, Struve began working as a stellar spectroscopy assistant at Yerkes with a monthly salary of $75, starting with taking a training course. The observatory was in decline and Struve was alone in class. Three more students joined him in 1922, but only for a summer, and only one of those continued later. There were no lectures, and the students were learning by reading, practice and discussions with professors.Struve proved to be a quick learner and talented scientist. Five months after arrival, he made his first discovery of a pulsating star at Gamma Ursae Minoris and wrote an article on it in September 1922. He was spending more time with observations than anyone at Yerkes, trying every telescope available there, and also making weather observations at Williams Bay. On October 24, 1922, he discovered the asteroid 991 McDonalda and on November 14 of the same year, another asteroid 992 Swasey.
As early as December 1923, Struve defended his PhD thesis on short-period spectroscopic double stars at the University of Chicago. Frost helped him in waiving some required PhD examinations, e.g. in French and German, stating that Struve had done ample reading of scientific literature back in Russia, and was fluent in those languages. Struve then became an instructor, assistant professor and full professor at the university. His rapid promotion was again assisted by Frost, who also used job-offer letters from other observatories to Struve as proof that Struve was a highly valued scientist who must be kept at the University of Chicago. Between 1932 and 1947, Struve headed Yerkes Observatory; from 1939 to 1950 he acted as a founding director of the McDonald Observatory, and from July 1, 1952, to 1962 served as the first director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at University of Virginia. All those years, he remained in America except for conferences and an 8-month sabbatical leave to the University of Cambridge between August 1928 and May 1929. He applied for and won a Guggenheim Fellowship to cover his travel to, and living expenses in, Cambridge. While in Cambridge, Struve mostly worked on interstellar matter; he also went on a short trip to Leiden to meet Jan Oort.
Struve was a highly successful administrator who brought fame to Yerkes Observatory and rebuilt the astronomy department of the University of Chicago. In particular, he gradually renewed the scientific staff, dismissing stagnated permanent researchers who were not making significant contributions to science but were occupying the faculty positions. The process was difficult. Struve used to arrive first and leave last from the observatory, taking notes on working hours of staff which he then used in his bureaucratic moves. In replacement, he hired several young and talented researchers who later became world-famous scientists. Those included Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Gerard Kuiper, Bengt Strömgren, Gerhard Herzberg, William Wilson Morgan and Jesse L. Greenstein. After World War II, he also invited a number of leading European researchers, such as Pol Swings, Jan Oort, Marcel Minnaert, H. C. van der Hulst and Albrecht Unsöld. As most of them were foreigners, their appointment met strong opposition from the science officials for various reasons, such as taking jobs from Americans during the Great Depression. India-born Chandrasekhar, who spent a month in the Soviet Union in 1934, was also suspected of Communist connections. Struve spent extraordinary efforts defending and justifying each case, and those efforts paid off in building the scientific school at Yerkes and University of Chicago. For example, Chandrasekhar spent his entire career as a scientist and administrator at the University of Chicago, assisting Struve and eventually replacing him as president of the American Astronomical Society and as the Editor in Chief of the Astrophysical Journal.
By the late 1940s, many young researchers whom Struve invited to Yerkes became established scientists. This created friction, as they did not want to follow his every word and were building their own careers. In 1947, Struve resigned as director of Yerkes Observatory and became chairman of the astronomy department at the University of California, Berkeley and director of the Leuschner Observatory. He was succeeded by Kuiper at Yerkes; their relations were strained at times because of Struve's tendencies to keep control of Yerkes management. There were also rumors of similar strains between Struve and Chandrasekhar, but they were always dispersed by the latter, who insisted that Struve always kept scientific relations with his colleagues above the administrative ones. One reason for Struve's move to Berkeley was his tiredness of bureaucracy. In Berkeley, he was spending more time with personal research and students than ever before.