John A. Hyatt Collection

The John A. Hyatt Collection includes various materials related to John A. Hyatt’s involvement in the Robert Burns Woodward group of students, who worked and studied with Woodward in the Department of Chemistry at Harvard University between 1973 to 1974. Included are letters of correspondence concerning Hyatt’s postdoctoral application to the Department of Chemistry at Harvard University with signatures from Woodward, the Woodward Research Institute and its 60th birthday celebration of Woodward, and a personal note written by Woodward concerning the death of his longtime secretary, Dodie Dyer.

The collection also includes two pages of legal notepaper bearing equations penned by Woodward, which explain the parallel between a key step in synthesis with a reaction he wanted Hyatt to attempt through erythromycin synthesis. One black and white photograph and three color photographs of the Woodward group, with individual names listed on the back of each image, are also preserved here.