Posted on Oct. 1: Documents on Einstein from the Russell Archives headed for major exhibition

McMaster University will be lending two documents from the Bertrand
Russell Archives for a major exhibition on Einstein to be staged at
four museums in the United States and one museum in Israel over the next three years. The exhibit is titled Einstein: Changing World.

Carl Spadoni, research collections librarian, Mills Memorial Library,
says that the Library will be providing the April 11, 1955 letter from
Einstein to Russell which, in fact, is Einstein's last letter. The
letter was written a week before Einstein died, and in it he agrees to
sign a statement about the threat of proliferation of nuclear weapons.
The statement is known today as the “Russell-Einstein Manifesto.”

The second document is a mimeographed press release, containing the
statement, which is signed by Einstein, Russell, and six other
scientists, several of whom were Nobel Prize winners.

According to Spadoni, Russell was shattered when he heard the news of
Einstein's death. “He had not only lost a cherished colleague, but his
plans to call the world's attention to the problem of nuclear peril
were placed in jeopardy. Unexpectedly, Russell then received Einstein's letter. Einstein's agreement to sign Russell's statement was a powerful incentive in getting other scientists to agree to the statement. Russell wanted the agreement not just of Western scientists but those from the other side of the Iron Curtain. These documents heralded the beginning of Russell's protest movement on a mass scale which led to the formation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.”

The exhibition will travel to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Field Museum in Chicago, the Boston Museum of Natural
Science and the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles from Nov.
15, 2002 to May 29, 2005. After its American tour, the exhibition will
then travel to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, which houses a large collection of Einstein's archives.