Correspondence re: electric ophthalmoscope, 1913-1924

This small collection of biographical information, correspondence, photographs, maps, and awards, 1894-1988, highlights notable events in the career of George Sumner Crampton.

Series 1 contains biographical information, primarily printed, 1894-1988, concerning George S. Crampton, his work, and his wife's family, the Smedes family.

A miscellaneous collection of Crampton's correspondence, 1903-1959, is in Series 2. Most of these letters are personal, though many contain some professional information. There are several letters documenting Crampton's professional appointments and his development of the electric ophthalmoscope.

The bulk of the collection, Series 3, 1911-1919, contains details of Crampton's military service during World War I. Most of his movements, from his commission to his discharge, are documented through military orders and memoranda. The series also contains a detailed statistical report of casualties treated in the hospitals of the American Expeditionary Forces during the final months of the war; Crampton's own design for a latrine fly trap; and twenty maps of France, including a detail of the order of battle as situated at the conclusion of the war on 11 November 1918. Some photographs of Crampton during World War I are contained in Series 5.

Series 4 contains correspondence, newsclippings, and related material concerning Crampton's awards and professional affiliations, 1897-1958. The receipt of two awards, the Gold Medal Award of the Illuminating Engineering Society and the Edward Longstreth Medal of the Franklin Institute, is particularly well documented. The file on the Longstreth Medal contains a detailed report to the Committee on Science and the Arts concerning Crampton's development of the borescope.

Photographs of George S. Crampton, 1894-1958, including studio portraits, some photographs from his army service in France, and images of Crampton with the borescope, are contained in Series 5. The series also contains two lantern slides, 1925, showing architectural details from the restoration of the operating theater at Pennsylvania Hospital.