Dr. Hugh L. Dryden was an aerodynamicist by training, a career civil servant, and a government official. With degrees in physics and mathematics he became chief of the aerodynamics section of the National Bureau of Standards and eventually served as the first deputy administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This collection consists of memorabilia relating to Dryden's career.

Dr. Hugh L. Dryden was an aerodynamicist by training, a career civil servant, and a government official. He was born in Pocomoke City, Maryland, in 1898. He graduated from high school at age 14 and went on to earn an A.B. three years later from Johns Hopkins University. In 1919, he earned his Ph.D. in physics and mathematics from the same institution, even though he had been a full-time employee of the National Bureau of Standards since 1918. Dryden became chief of the aerodynamics section of the Bureau in 1920. There, he pioneered research in airflow, turbulence, and especially the problems of the boundary layer--the thin layer of air next to an airfoil that causes drag. This work ultimately contributed to the production of laminar flow wings used in the P-51 Mustang and other World War II aircraft. During the war, his work on a glide bomb named the Bat (the first U.S. guided missile successfully employed in combat) won him a Presidential Certificate of Merit. By the time Dryden left the Bureau of Standards in 1947, he was its associate director. That same year he accepted the position of director for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). He remained at that job until 1958. One of the more notable projects he undertook at NACA was to supervise the development of the X-15 experimental rocket plane. In 1958, he was appointed as the first deputy administrator of a new government agency that replaced NACA--the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Dryden stayed on at NASA in this capacity until his death in 1965.