Joseph Herman Howey (1901-) served as chair of the School of Physics. In 1976, the Physics Building was named in his honor. His papers include a manuscript notebook, entitled "Vector Analysis" and inscribed "J. H. Howey, Yale University, 1927."

The Physics Department was one of the original eight departments created when Georgia Tech opened in 1888. The first chair of the department was Isaac S. Hopkins, who also became Georgia Tech's first president. This collection contains student records (1919-1920), administrative correspondence of J.B. Edwards (1932-36), and personnel files of the Physics Department during the 1940s.