Silicon Valley Archives

Robert Noyce was a Silicon Valley pioneer who participated in the invention of the microchip. He was part of the first successful semiconductor corporation, Fairchild Semiconductor, and went on to be one of the founders of Intel. After his death in 1990, the Noyce Foundation was named by his estate.

Ira Nowinski is an American photographer of Polish and Hungarian Jewish descent. Born around 1942 and raised in New York, he was the first person in his family born in the United States. At the age of 42, he was prodded by opera singer Regina Resnick to do a photo essay around the Jewish milieu. He had previously done photo essays of the North Beach, San Francisco area, of the evacuation of elderly citizens from hotels in the South of Market area of San Francisco, and of the Southeast Asian Community in the same city. In addition, he had been the staff photographer of the San Francisco Opera since 1978.

The collection includes personal correspondence, 1969-2002; materials pertaining to Microsoft, both his career there and the company, 1976-99; his research materials and notebooks on computers, the software industry, investments, and other interests, 1988-2006; papers, yearbooks, notebooks, and other items from his student career, 1971-80; materials pertaining to his philanthropic interests; and photographs and other audio-visual materials.

Many communities have contributed to Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, their lives and work are not always well represented in the archival collections that have been amassed to date. It is a major priority of the Silicon Valley Archives to build a historical record of underrepresented communities through archival records. In 2020, the Silicon Valley launched the African American Histories in Silicon Valley oral history series. 

This project gathers together roughly 100 oral histories and interviews with the people who conceived, built and worked in the semiconductor industry centered in Silicon Valley since the 1950s. The project to produce these interviews began in 1995 and continues actively today. 

This expanding collection chronicles and records the histories of physicians, engineers, scientists, business leaders, investors, attorneys, and regulators who together catalyzed an industry, developed innumerable innovative technologies, and helped hundreds of millions of patients. We partner with the Byers Center for Biodesign to record these oral histories of key pioneers and players in the medical technology industry and to collect related documentation.