176
9 Mount Wilson
was a Tuesday. George Hale was traveling in Europe (in May there had been a
meeting in Paris of the International Solar Union, founded in St. Louis) and
he also visited Amsterdam; he had asked Kapteyn to meet him at his hotel.
Hotel de l’Europe was not a cheap hotel then either, so Hale did travel ‘like a
gentleman’.
Hale’s proposal was amazing. He suggested Kapteyn would accept a parttime appointment with the Carnegie Institution, which operated, among other
things, the Observatory on Mount Wilson, and then come to California every
year for several months to lead the implementation of the 60 in. telescope
observational program for his Selected Areas. He was allowed to make use of
the appointment as he wished; he was also allowed to do the work for it
elsewhere, even outside America if there was a good reason for doing so at any
time. One can imagine how Kapteyn must have felt during the train journey
back from Amsterdam to Groningen. He now had the opportunity to finish his
life’s work; his Plan had become a spearhead of the new telescope, the largest
on Earth and he was given the financial means to play a leading role in its
implementation.
Apparently, according to Kapteyn’s letter, Hale had offered him a salary of
1,500 dollar a year. That sounds like quite a sum, but in his reply Kapteyn
suggests raising it to 1800 dollars! I quote [Kapteyn’s wording is not very
transparent, but the intention is clear]:
Not that I will not accept if there are fundamental objections and then accept
the earlier amount. If I were rich enough I would undoubtedly prefer not to
receive any salary at all. But now that I am not in the circumstance to cherish
such a luxury, it would be a fine thing for me to be free of financial worries;
which means: free from the need to give extra lectures, to take external exams
and so on in order to be able to provide for the claim on a professor’s salary by
my three out-of-home children. In short, the requested increase should allow me
to dedicate all my free time to astronomical research.
The 1800 dollars in 1907 represents a purchasing power of about 50,000 e
now. That would now be almost half a year’s salary of a senior professor. But
it is likely that Kapteyn would have to pay his travel and other extra costs out
of the Carnegie allowance as well. George Hale agreed on June 15 (now from
London) and even proposes to raise the salary even further to 2,000 dollars if
Kapteyn’s trip to America takes up too much of his resources.
9 Mount Wilson
was a Tuesday. George Hale was traveling in Europe (in May there had been a
meeting in Paris of the International Solar Union, founded in St. Louis) and
he also visited Amsterdam; he had asked Kapteyn to meet him at his hotel.
Hotel de l’Europe was not a cheap hotel then either, so Hale did travel ‘like a
gentleman’.
Hale’s proposal was amazing. He suggested Kapteyn would accept a parttime appointment with the Carnegie Institution, which operated, among other
things, the Observatory on Mount Wilson, and then come to California every
year for several months to lead the implementation of the 60 in. telescope
observational program for his Selected Areas. He was allowed to make use of
the appointment as he wished; he was also allowed to do the work for it
elsewhere, even outside America if there was a good reason for doing so at any
time. One can imagine how Kapteyn must have felt during the train journey
back from Amsterdam to Groningen. He now had the opportunity to finish his
life’s work; his Plan had become a spearhead of the new telescope, the largest
on Earth and he was given the financial means to play a leading role in its
implementation.
Apparently, according to Kapteyn’s letter, Hale had offered him a salary of
1,500 dollar a year. That sounds like quite a sum, but in his reply Kapteyn
suggests raising it to 1800 dollars! I quote [Kapteyn’s wording is not very
transparent, but the intention is clear]:
Not that I will not accept if there are fundamental objections and then accept
the earlier amount. If I were rich enough I would undoubtedly prefer not to
receive any salary at all. But now that I am not in the circumstance to cherish
such a luxury, it would be a fine thing for me to be free of financial worries;
which means: free from the need to give extra lectures, to take external exams
and so on in order to be able to provide for the claim on a professor’s salary by
my three out-of-home children. In short, the requested increase should allow me
to dedicate all my free time to astronomical research.
The 1800 dollars in 1907 represents a purchasing power of about 50,000 e
now. That would now be almost half a year’s salary of a senior professor. But
it is likely that Kapteyn would have to pay his travel and other extra costs out
of the Carnegie allowance as well. George Hale agreed on June 15 (now from
London) and even proposes to raise the salary even further to 2,000 dollars if
Kapteyn’s trip to America takes up too much of his resources.