Following the suggestion and subsequent reminder (nothing like a deadline to get the creative juices flowing) from gg at Skulls in the Stars, I’ve got two “old” papers that I’m going to summarize.
I recommend choosing something pre- World War II, as that was the era of hand-crafted, “in your basement”-style science. There’s a lot to learn not only about the ingenuity of researchers in an era when materials were not readily available, but also about the problems and concerns of scientists of that era, often things we take for granted now!
These are from 1931, fulfilling the pre-WWII criterion, when you still had individuals engaging in research that were self-financed or supported by a patron and much of the equipment was self-manufactured. The science in this case was largely self-funded, and as for the “basement,” well, it’s a pretty fancy basement as you’ll see, as one might suspect of someone who can fund his own science. But classic nonetheless. There’s a bit to do, and I’m going to break it up into more manageable chunks.
The papers in question are from the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 91, published in 1931, and are “The Precise Measurement of Time” by Alfred L. Loomis (p. 569-575) and “Time, Analysis of records made on the Loomis chronograph by three Shortt clocks and a crystal oscillator” by Brown, E. W. & Brouwer, D. (p.575-591). (I, know, I know. They sound like tabloid headlines, don’t they?) The first paper describes various apparati used, and the second describes a particular measurement that was of interest to me.