A Guide to the Genetics Collections at the APS
Major Collections

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Raymond Pearl Papers

b. June 3, 1879, Farmington, New Hampshire. d. Nov. 17, 1940, Hershey, Pennsylvania. m. Maud Dewitt, 1903. Daughters, Ruth DeWitt (P.) Jencks; Penelope (P.) Mackey. Classical secondary education. Dartmouth C., A.B., 1899. U. Mich., Ph.D., 1902. Instructor zool. U. Mich. 1902-06. Fellow, Galton Laboratory, U. London, 1905-06, with Karl Pearson in biometrics and statistical methods; also at U. Leipzig and Marine Zoological Sta., Naples. Instructor zool., U. Pennsylvania, 1906-07. Head, dept. biol., Maine Agric. Exper. Sta., U. Maine, Orono, 1907-18. Chief, Statistical Div. U.S. Food Admin., Washington, 1917-19. Prof. Biometry & Vital Statistics arid head, Dept. of Statistics, Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, 1918-25; Frof Biol., Medical School J.H.U., 1923-40; Prof Biol., Sch. Hyg., J.H.U., 1930-40; Director, Inst. for Biol. Research, J.H.U., 1925-30, and Research Professor.

Lowell Lect., Harv. U., 1920. Special Lect., U. London, 1927. Harrington Lect., U. Buffalo, 1928. Heath Clark Lect., U. London, 1937. Fatten Lect., Indiana U., 1938. Founder and Editor, Quarterly Review of Biology, 1926; Founder and Editor, Human Biology, 1929.

BIOG.
H. S. Jennings, Biogr. Mem. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 22:295-347 (1943). Lowell I. Reed, Science 92:595-97 (1940). L.J. Henderson, A.P.S. Yrbk. 1940-1941:431-33. H.S. Jennings, Genetics 26:v-vlll (unnumbered), 1941. J.W. Gowen, Rec. Genetics Soc. 9:7-9 (1940). Dict. Scient. Biog. 10:444-45; Dict. Amer. Biog. suppl. 2:521-22; Huber, Kurzbiographische 1940 verstorbene Aerzte des englischen Sprachraumes (Zurich, 1976) 95-7; Natl. Cycloped. Amer. Biogr. 1893-15:382; Who Was Who in America, 1949; Who Was Who in Amer. Hist.-Sci. & Tech., 472-73; Who Was Who in Science, 1320. Mendel Newsletter 10:5-7 (1974). Biobibliography for the History of the Biochemical Sciences since 1800, 546.

BIBLIOG.
Raymond Pearl was clearly one of the most prolific American scientists, to this day. His bibliography includes 712 items, including 17 books. Over a span of forty-one years he averaged 17.3 titles per year, the maximum in a single year being 34. His interests extended to everything biological and to all social and cultural relationships of biological matters. Jennings gives a full summary of these diverse publications. "There were papers on animal behavior, from Protozoa to man; on general physiology; many on varied aspects of genetics (on variations, on abnormalities, on the breeding of Drosophila, of poultry, of cattle, of corn, of cantaloupes, on tongue colors in cattle, on the colors of hens' eggs, on the biology of sex, on the effects of parental alcoholism on progeny, on mutation, on methods of research in genetics, on the effect (or absence of effect) of selection, and on many other problems of genetics. There are many technical contributions on the care and breeding of fowls (fertility and fecundity in fowls, diseases of fowls, plumage patterns, egg production, keeping fowls free from lice, the folk-lore of hens' eggs, and the like). Many papers are devoted to technique, in the laboratory and in the field. There are extensive contributions to statistical methods, some abstruse, some directly practical. Many papers deal with disease: influenza, pneumonia, tuberculosis, cancer, encephalitis. Many papers (more than on any other subject) deal with the biology of man: papers on longevity and mortality, on the effects of alcohol and of tobacco, on eugenics, on race culture, on the biology of superiority, on the embryological basis of mortality, on the biology of death, on population, on contraception, on the vitality of the peoples of England and Wales, on world overcrowding, on the biological effects of war, on the history of vital statistics, on patterns for living together. There are papers on food and prices, on wheat conservation, on 'the nation's food', on food thrift, on business cycles. There are papers of philosophical import: on evolution and the origin of life, on 'evolution and the Irish', on vegetarian biology, on the living machine, on the pragmatic standpoint in philosophy, on natural theology without theistic implications, on reconciling religion and Darwinism, on humanizing biology, on 'a philosopher for the bloc', on skepticism reconciled, on 'scientists into philosophers', on 'America today and possibly tomorrow'. There are many miscellaneous papers on the most varied subjects constituting a journalism of science: on a eighteenth century patron of science, on 'the prince of colyumists', on statistics of garbage collection, on a new statistical journal, on Jewish and Christian marriages, on the work of agricultural experiment stations, and the like." These articles were contributed to statistical journals, medical journals, agricultural journals, encyclopedias, miscellaneous scientific publications, literary and miscellaneous journals, and newspapers. In addition, Pearl wrote hosts of book reviews: longer signed reviews in periodicals to which he was invited to contribute; short and terse, often devastating unsigned comments in the periodicals he himself edited.

BOOKS.
The books of which Pearl was author or a coauthor were the following: Variation and Differentiation in Ceratophyllum (with Olive M. Pepper and Florence C. Hagle), 1907; Variation and Correlation in the Crayfish with Special Reference to the Influence of Differentiation and Homology of Parts (with A.B. Clawson), 1907; Diseases of Poultry (with F.M. Surface and M.R. Curtis), 1915; Reference Handbook of Food Statistics in Relation to the War (with Esther Pearl Matchett), 1918; The Nation's Food, 1920; The Biology of Death, 1922 (Swed. transl. 1924); Introduction to Medical Biometry and Statistics, 1923, 1930, 1940; Studies in Human Biology, 1924; The Biology of Population Growth, 1925; Alcohol and Longevity, 1926; To Begin With, 1927, 1930; The Rate of Living, 1928; The Present State of Eugenics, 1928; Alkohol und Lebensdauer, 1930; Constitution and Health, 1933; The Ancestry of the Long-lived, (with Ruth D. Pearl), 1934; The Natural History of Population, 1939; Man the Animal [posthumously edited by F. Payne]. xii + 128 pp., Principia Press, Bloomington, Indiana, 1946.

HONORS AND AWARDS.
L.L.D., U. Maine, 1919; Sc.D., Dartmouth C., 1919; Litt. D., St. John's C., Annapolis, 1935. Knight of the Crown of Italy, 1920; Officer, 1929. Hon. memb. Roy. Acad. Med., 1940. Member, Amer. Philos. Soc. (1915); Natl. Acad. Sci. (1916); Amer. Acad. Arts & Sciences, 1915.

SCIENTIFIC AND PROFESSIONAL OFFICES.
Natl. Acad. Sci., council, 1919-25. Natl. Res. Counc., Exec. Com.; chmn. agric. com., 191618. Ed. Visitors & Governors, St. John's C., 1928-34. Science Service, trustee, 1929-35. Pres., Amer. Soc. Zosologists, 1913; pres., Amer. Soc. Naturalists, 1916-17; pres., Intnatl. Union for Scient. Invest. Pop. Prob., 1928-30; pres., Amer. Assn. Phys. Anthrop., 1934-36; pres., Amer. Statist. Assn., 1939. Saturday Night Club, Baltimore.

EDITORIAL POSTS.
Founder and editor, Quarterly Review of Biology, 1926-40. Founder and editor, Human Biology, 1929-40. assoc. ed., Biometrika, 1906-10. Assoc. ed., J. Agric. Res., 1914-18. Edit. Ed., Genetics, J. Exp. Zool., Metron, Biologia Generalis, Acta Biotheoretica.

THE RAYMOND PEARL PAPERS.
In addition to the collected reprints of Pearl's published papers, bound in 16 volumes, and the individual books he wrote, the unpublished papers (described in the Mendel Newsletter 10:5-7, 1974) number about 15,000 letters, including carbon copies of Pearl's outgoing letters. The correspondence begins in 1895, with ca. 250 letters from Raymond Pearl to his mother while he was at college, and continues until his death. There is correspondence with many scientific societies. After marriage, when away from home, Pearl wrote at least daily to his wife, a total of ca. 400 letters. There are also some 30 diaries and notebooks. Correspondence with H.L. Mencken (access restricted) numbers ca. 400 letters from M., 100 to him.

Raymond Pearl's scientific career may be conveniently divided into five rather distinct periods. The first of these occupied him during his years as a student at Dartmouth College, when he first became interested in biology while taking work with John H. Gerould, and as a graduate student and instructor at the University of Michigan. During this time Pearl followed his mentor H. S. Jennings, who had taught as a substitute for Professor Gerould during a sabbatical leave of the latter, to the University of Michigan. With Jennings, he worked on animal behavior and variation. He also participated in the summers in the Biological Survey of the Great Lakes, by studying variation in fishes (1900-02). Pearl's doctoral thesis was on the reactions and behavior of planarians. Other studies dealt with the general physiology of responses to electric currents and intense light; laboratory techniques; and variation in flowers, protozoans, earthworms, cats, and humans. Toward the end of this period Pearl became intensely interested in biostatistical methods, especially in correlation.

The second period began with Pearl's decision to go to England to work with Karl Pearson on biometrics. His stay at the Galton Laboratory led to a fruitful collaboration with Pearson and to his appointment as an associate editor of Biometrika. He visited Leipzig and the Marine Zoological Station at Naples. Then, for a year, he took Jennings's vacated post at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1907 he went to the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Maine, at Orono. Here his interest in biometrics and statistics became applied to investigations of the biology, and especially genetics, of poultry and domestic animals. In 1910, professional differences with Pearson ("rather to be expected," wrote Jennings, "of two such strong and aggressive personalities") led to Pearl's resignation from Biometrika. Pearson and Pearl nevertheless remained on friendly terms.

The third period, at Orono, was marked by Pearl's increasing interest in the genetics of poultry, especially of egg production, as well as of dairy cattle (milk production). Pearl concerned himself with methods of artificial selection, growth, the physiology of reproduction, and a wide range of general questions of heredity, evolution, and eugenics. He applied Mendelian genetic and chromosome theory to quantitative characteristics. He began his analysis of the significance of logarithmic curves in the growth of individuals and populations. He devoted considerable time to studies of the consequences of inbreeding, and he continued his studies of statistical methods.

This period was interrupted by the call to Pearl to engage in war work (1917-19). As Chief of the Statistical Division of the U.S. Food Administration, under Herbert Hoover, he put his skill in statistics and in administration to important use. It is interesting that in this capacity he was the superior of his one-time mentor, H. S. Jennings. At this time Pearl published a number of popular informative essays on nutrition, food, and prices, and wrote The Nation's Food. As Pearl sharpened his literary style in these writings, he became increasingly interested in human biology.

The final, lengthy period of Pearl's career was spent at the Johns Hopkins University, in association with the School of Hygiene and Public Health and the Medical School. Here he founded, with Rockefeller Foundation money, an Institute for Biological Research, and applied his knowledge of biostatistics to human biology. Even the experimental work he did, for example with Drosophila, was conceived to throw light on the problem of human longevity and its inheritance. Books and articles, both technical and popular, flowed in superabundance from his pen. He founded and edited, with his wife's able help, the Quarterly Review of Biology and Human Biology. His philosophy of life, of what should be the proper education for a biologist, and of the relation of science to society, as they matured under the influence of his skeptical friend H. L. Mencken, flowered in numerous articles and a superlative little book, a guide to reading for graduate students, entitled To Begin With. As Jennings characterized him:

He was a man of unusual height and weight, physically an impressive figure. His was a masterful personality, of extraordinary resourcefulness and initiative, of wide knowledge, astonishing power of work, remarkable versatility and scope, and strong ambitions. His interest in biology was encyclopedic.

Perhaps not since Galton and Virchow has biology seen his like. His seventeen books and sixteen hefty volumes of collected articles bear witness to his incredible industry.

One episode during this period (1919-40) is not documented in any of the biographical notices and memoirs dealing with Raymond Pearl. Light is thrown upon it principally in the Pearl Papers and to some extent in those of H. S. Jennings. It concerned the most mortifying experience in Pearl's otherwise fortunate and happy life. In 1927, when the directorship of the Bussey Institute at Harvard University fell vacant, Pearl was selected by a faculty committee above all other candidates for the post. After the usual visitation to the institution, Pearl was confirmed as the appointee by faculty, lower administration, and the president of Harvard. Pearl accepted the flattering offer to transform the Bussey Institute into a research institute focused on human biology, and he resigned his professorship at Johns Hopkins. E. M. East, however, a notable geneticist at Harvard who held a professorship in the Bussey Institute, was bitterly antagonistic, for he considered Pearl's attack (1927) on the shoddy scientific basis of American (and foreign) eugenics and its racism as a personal attack on himself and his two popular books on the subject, Mankind at the Crossroads (1924) and Heredity and Human Affairs (1927). In spite of Pearl's disclaimer -- he had indeed reviewed the two books quite favorably -- East abruptly broke off their long-standing friendship, and correspondence between them ceased. E. B. Wilson, Harvard biostatistician, tried to mediate but to no avail. Wilson had been on a sabbatical leave spent in California when the offer from Harvard was made. When he returned to Cambridge, he and East took the unprecedented step of appealing the appointment to Harvard's Board of Overseers. Wilson, whose previous correspondence with Pearl had been cordial and flattering, now accused him of scientific superficiality, careless work, and general incompetence. The Board of Overseers refused to confirm the appointment; and Pearl, in great chagrin, had humbly to request the president of the Johns Hopkins University to reinstate him. This was done. Jennings, in his Journal, records the episode but was apparently not consulted during any part of it, either by Pearl or by the president of Johns Hopkins. Quietly forgotten, the bitterness evoked seems not to have affected Pearl's balance or his scientific productivity.

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