From the earliest days of the University to the present, physics and physicists have played major roles in the life of the University. The first faculty appointment was John LeConte, professor of physics (and third president of the University). In the 20th century Berkeleyans were in the international vanguard developing the theory and practice of the science, creating partnerships between government agencies and academe, inventing "big science." When Ernest O. Lawrence won the Nobel Prize in 1939 (the first scientist in an American public university to be so recognized), he began a tradition that today includes 18 Nobelists at Berkeley, including 6 in physics.

The Bancroft exhibit draws on the Library's rich trove of primary resources in the history of science and technology. Included are archives and manuscripts, oral histories, pictorial images, and other materials drawn from the records of the Office of the President, the Berkeley Chancellor and the Department of Physics, and the papers of leading scientists, among them Luis Alvarez, Raymond T. Birge, Donald Glazer, Edwin McMillan, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Emilio Segre.