A Guide to the Genetics Collections at the APS
Minor Collections
Bridges, Calvin B.
b. Jan. 11, 1889, Schuyler Falls, N.Y. d. Dec. 12, 1938, Los Angeles, Cal. Only child of Leonard V. and Charlotte Amelia (Blackman) Bridges. Orphaned at age 3 years; brought up by paternal grandmother. Graduated from high school at age 20. Columbia U., 1909-12. m. Gertrude Ives, 1912; 4 children. Columbia U., A.B. 1912; Ph.D., 1916. Research associate, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1915-38, at Columbia U. 1915-28; at California Institute of Technology, 1928-38.
BIOG.
T.H. Morgan, Science 89:118-19 (1939); J. Hered. 30:355-58 (1939); Genetics 25:i-iv (1940); Biogr. Mem. NAS. 22:31-48 (1941). H.J. Muller, Nature 143:191-92 (1939). Jack Schultz (unsigned), Natl. Cyclop. Amer. Biog.. 30:374 (1943). Dict. Sci. Biog.. 2:455-57. A.H. Sturtevant, Biol. Bull. 79:24 (1940). Numerous references in Sturtevant, A History of Genetics, (1965).
BIBLIOG.
In Morgan, Biog. Mem. NAS 22:31-48 (1941).
BOOKS AND MONOGRAPHS
The Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity (with T.H. Morgan, A.H. Sturtevant, and H.J. Muller), 1915. Sex-linked Inheritance in Drosophila, 1916. The Second Chromosome Group of Mutant Characters in Drosophila melanogaster (1919). The Third Chromosome Group of Mutant Characters of Drosophila melanogaster (with T.H. Morgan), 1923. The Genetics of Drosophila (with T.H. Morgan and A.H. Sturtevant), 1925. The Mutants of Drosophila melanogaster (edited by Katherine S. Brehme), 1944.
EDITORIAL ACTIVITIES.
With M. Demerec, initiated the Drosophila Information Service.
HONORS
Mem., Natl. Acad. Sci., 1936.
THE BRIDGES PAPERS.
Upon his death, Bridges's papers were all destroyed by T. H. Morgan and A. H. Sturtevant. So far as is known, there is no correspondence or manuscript material remaining, except for the four notebooks preserved in the possession of Jack Schultz, and whatever may be found in the papers of other correspondents. These notebooks now form the present collection, having come to the American Philosophical Society with the Jack Schultz Papers.
These manuscript notebooks contain the preliminary drafts of Bridges's publication on the second chromosome characters of D. melanogaster. They are the following:
- Pale translocation.
- Gulloid-bearing Pale translocation.
- Mutants: abbreviated, shrunken, balloon, blistered, blistered-2, brown, brown-2, brown 2-c, dilutor of brown, brown-3, brown-4, brown-5, humpy, lanceolate, lanceolate-3, lethal-Nova Scotia, lethal-II ay, morula, morula-2, plexus, purpleoid, speck.
- Plexate deficiency, Plexate-2 deficiency, Plexate-3, Minute-L deficiency; interaction of Plexate- and Pale-T. Typescript of paper on "The mutual neutralization of deficiencies and overlapping duplications," with tables.
There are 175 letters to and from Bridges in the Demerec Papers, 40 in the Dunn Papers, and 21 in the Stern Papers. A considerable number will no doubt be found also in the Jack Schultz Papers when these have been indexed. The total in the collections of the archives of the American Philosophical Society is almost certainly greater than anywhere else.
Castle, William Ernest
b. Oct. 25, 1867 d. June 3, 1962. Denison U., B.A., 1889. Harvard U., B.A., 1893; M.A., 1894; Ph.D., 1895. Instructor, U. Wisconsin, 1895-96. Instructor, Knox C., 1896-97. Instructor, Harvard U., 1897-1903; asst. prof, 1903-08; prof., 1908-36. Research assoc., mammalian genetics, U. Calif. Berkeley, 1936-62. Pres., Amer. Soc. Naturalists, 1919. Amer. Acad. Arts & Sci., 1900; Amer. Philos. Soc., 1910; Natl. Acad. Sci., 1915. N.A.S. Kimber Gold Medal and Award, 1955. Sc.D., U. Wisconsin; LL.D., Denison U. Editorial Work. Edit. Ed., J. Exper. Zool., 1904-62. A founder of J. Heredity, 1913. A founder of Genetics, 1916.
BOOKS.
Heredity of Coat Characters in Guinea Pigs and Rabbits, 1905. Selection and Cross-Breeding in Relation to the Inheritance of Coat Pigment and Coat Patterns in Rats and Guinea Pigs, 1907. Piebald Rats and Selection: An Experimental Test of the Effectiveness of Selection and of the Theory of Gametic Purity in Mendelian Crosses (with J. C. Phillips), l914. Genetics and Eugenics, 1916.
BIOG.
L.C. Dunn, Biog. Mem. NAS.38:31-80 (1965). Garland E. Allen, Dict. Scient. Biog.. 3:120-124.
BIBLIOG.
L.C. Dunn, op. cit.
THE CASTLE PAPERS.
1950s and 60s. About 800 items.
Correspondence, notes, and some photographs, almost exclusively concerned with the genetics of horses. The primary correspondence was with Ralph Singleton, director of the Blandy Experimental Farm in Boyce, Virginia. Also correspondence with some organizations, such as the Welsh Pony Society of America; and with individuals including Donald C. Bell, P.W. Gregory, Miguel Odriozola, and Dewey G. Steele. Collection presented by Mrs. Ralph Singleton, 1982. Additional correspondence of W. E. Castle may be found in the Dunn Papers (97 items: 1924-61), and in the Li Papers, which are wholly concerned with W. E. Castle's anticipation of the Hardy-Weinberg Law in 1903, and with his many distinguished graduate students, who included J. H. Detlefsen, C. C. Little, Sewall Wright, L.C. Dunn, Gregory Pincus, P.W. Gregory, and Geo. D. Snell. No other geneticists of his generation, except T. H. Morgan and R. A. Emerson, were his peers in the training of the next generation. Mardi Bettes Fuller, "William Ernest Castle Papers," Mendel Newsletter 20:4-5 (1981).
Hollaender, Alexander
b. Samter, Germany, Dec. 19, 1898. d. Washington, D.C., Dec. 6, 1986. U. Wisconsin, A.B., 1929; M.A., 1930; Ph.D., 1931. Sc.D., U. Vermont, 1959; U. Leeds, 1962. Came to USA, 1921; naturalized, 1927. Assistant, physical chemistry, U. Wisconsin, 1929-31. Natl. Res. Council fellow in the biological sciences, 1931-33. Investigator, Rockefeller Found., 1934. Investigator in charge, radiation work, NRC project, U. Wisconsin, 1934-37. Assoc. biophysicist, Wash. Biophysics Inst., NIH, 1937-1938; biophysicist, 1938-41; sr. biophysicist, 1941-45; prin. biophysicist, 1945-46; head biophysicist, 1946-50. Dir., Biol. Div., Oak Ridge Natl. Lab., 1946-66. Prof radiation biology, U. Tenn., 1957-1966. Council for Research Planning in the Biological Sciences, Associated Universities, 1966-86. Amer. Acad. Arts & Sci., 1960; Natl. Acad. Sci., 1957. Committees, AEC, OSRD, Office Surgeon-General, C. radiation biol., C. photobiology, NRC. Pres., ComitT Internatl. de Photobiologie, 1954-60; hon. pres., 1964. Pres., Radiation Research Soc., 1954-55. Pres., Assn. for Radiation Research, 1962-66. Editor: Radiation Biology (3 v.), 1954-56; Radiation Protection and Recovery, 1960.
THE HOLLAENDER PAPERS
Ca. 1950-70. About 1000 items (8 In. ft.).
Consist of letters, reports, etc., concerning the genetic effects of radiation, especially atomic radiation. Documents of the International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy; the NAS Committee on the Biological Effects of Atomic Energy, Genetics Panel; the United Nations Scientific Committee on Atomic Radiation; and the World Health Organization.
Table of contents, 5 pp. Presented by Alexander Hollaender, 1974.
Selected files
View the key to abbreviations
| Amer. Soc. Human Genetics | 7 fold.:1956-61 | SO, ICHG, C |
| Appleyard, R.K. | 24:1956-58 | C (UNSCEAR), RG, C |
| Beadle, G. W. | 31:1957-59 | NAS (BEARGP), RG, C |
| Campbell, C.I. | 25:1956-57 | NAS (BEARGP), RG, C |
| Inter-Amer. Sympos., Peaceful Applications of Nuclear Energy | 10 fold.:1957 | CS |
| Intnatl. Conf., Replication and Recombination of Genetic Material | 7 fold.:1965-69 +2 fold. under NRC | CS, G |
| Intnatl. Conf., Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, II | 22 fold., 7 papers, 9 abstr., 4 repts. 1957-58 | CS, RG |
| Intnatl. Conf., Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, III | 2 fold.:1963 | CS, RG |
| Intnatl. Science Exhibit, Brussels | 8 fold.:1957 | CS |
| Kaplan, Martin M, | 18 fold.:1963-65 | WHO, ORNL |
| Muller, H. J. | 6 fold.:1956-59 | NAS (BEAR.GP), C, RG, WHO |
| NAS (Com., Biol. Effects of Atomic Radiation) [BEAR] | 30 fold.:1955-60 | NAS, C, RG |
| UN Scient. Com., Effects of Atomic Radiation [UNSCEAR] | 39 fold.:1956-64 | UN, C, RG |
| WHO | 5 fold. +2 repts.: 1956/65 | RG, PB, C, Neel, Muller |
| WHO (World Health Research Centre) | 24 fold. | SO |
| WHO (Study Group, Effect of Radiation on Human Genetics) | 18 fold.:1956 | SO, CS, RG, HG |
- Bronk, Detlev. W.
Crow, James M.
Demerec, M.
Dobzhansky, Th.
Emerson, Sterling
Glass, Bentley
Neel, James V.
Perutz, Max F.
Plough, Harold H.
Stern, Curt
Sturtevant, Alfred H.
Weaver, Warren.
For additional correspondence, see the Demerec Papers (79 items), See also Mardi Bettes Fuller, "Alexander Hollaender Papers," Mendel Newsletter 24:5-7 (1984).
Hurst, Charles Chamberlain
British botanist and early 20th century geneticist.
b. 1870. d. Dec. 17, 1947. Wesley C. (Sheffield); Cambridge U.; Regent House and faculty Cambridge U. Granted a Royal pension in 1941 in recognition of his discoveries in genetics.
BOOKS.
The Orchid Stud Book (with R.A. Rolfe), 1909. Experiments in Genetics, 1925. The Mechanism of Creative Evolution, 1932. A Genetic Formula for the Inheritance of Intelligence in Man, 1932. The Genetics of lntellect, 1934. Heredity and the Ascent of Man, 1935.
THE HURST PAPERS
2 boxes, 14 items.
The collection is composed chiefly of Mrs. C. C. Hurst's typescript (2897 pp.) of The Evolution of Genetics, her unpublished history of C. C. Hurst's contributions to the development of genetics in England. It is based on the collection of 2,000 letters in the Hurst Collection at the Cambridge University Library. The history also includes typescripts of many of the letters, as well as a copy of Hurst's paper on eugenics, "Genetical Improvement of the World's Populations." Appendices to this manuscript include annotated transcripts (46 pp.) of letters from Hurst to Wm. Bateson, 1903-11 (roughly the years of the existence of the Evolution Committee of the Royal Society). The originals of these letters are in the Bateson Coll., also at the Cambridge University Library. Microfilmed copies are deposited in the APS Library. The appendices also include Rona Hurst's descriptions of the notebooks kept by her husband on the experiments he performed at the Burbage Laboratories between 1901 and 1922, and her reminiscences of his "Pioneer Work on the Cytogenetics of the Genus Rosa." To supplement these items, Mrs. Hurst has also deposited at the APS a copy of the table of contents for the Hurst Collection at Cambridge University, several photographs, and a copy of C. C. Hurst's bibliography.
Presented by Mrs. C.C. Hurst, 1977/78.
[This description follows closely the previous one of the C.C. Hurst collection published by Mardi Bettes Fuller in the Mendel Newsletter 19:10 (1980).]
Iltis, Hugo
Collection of Papers on Genetics Donated by Hugo Iltis, Biographer of Mendel. Now integrated into the Genetics Miscellaneous Collection
Selected files
View the key to abbreviations
| Mendeliana | 28 | catalogue |
| Focke, W.F. | 1 | typescript, Focke on Mendel, 1914 |
| Genetics Soc. Amer. | 57:1947-1974 | SO, CS, RG, DSG, PI |
| Gowen, J.W. | 3 MSS, UPB, G: influence of sire and dam on daughter's production in Guernsey cattle, 18 pp.; dairy cattle breeding; survival of the sexes in man, mammals, and other bovine species (with I. Stadler), 49 pp. | |
| Johannsen, W.L. | 25 photos, 2 letters | BD |
| Kerkis, J. J. | MS, typescript | DG, 10 pp. |
| Lederberg, J. W. | 32(c):1946-57 | BCG, BPG, MLG, HG, CSH, G |
| Intnatl. Congr. Genetics, 10th | 6 files:l955-58 | CS, ICG 10, Proc. (2 vols.) |
| Intnatl. Congr. Genetics, 13th | 12 files:l971-73 | CS, ICG 13 |
| Weismann, August | 1(c):1906 | Mendel |
Kammerer, Paul
Austrian biologist. b. Aug. 17, 1880. d. Sept. 23, 1926. While not technically a geneticist, Kammerer is included in these collections because of his claims to have demonstrated an inheritance of acquired characteristics, a modern reiteration of Lamarck's views of the mechanism of evolution.
Kammerer's experiments were conducted with amphibians during the years 1904-28 -- the latter date because of a posthumous publication. Viviparous plain-colored Alpine salamanders were exchanged in habitat with spotted oviparous lowland salamanders, and vice versa. Kammerer reported that each type acquired the coloration of the other in its new habitat, and that this alteration of color was inherited. In a second series of experiments, Kammerer used the midwife toad, a species of toad that unlike other toads lacks the pigmented thumb pads that characterize the male of the species. Again, Kammerer claimed that alteration of the environment provided the male midwife toad with a stimulus that led to the development of black thumb pads, which were inherited by male offspring even when they were returned to the original environment.
In 1923, Kammerer lectured on his work in England, at Cambridge University and at the Linnean Society in London. Subsequently, he came to the United States for a tour of lectures, at Yale and Johns Hopkins Universities, among others. He met with much skepticism, but some scientists preferred to withhold judgment, e.g., H. S. Jennings (see the Jennings Papers). At Cambridge University Wm. Bateson criticized the work severely and tried to discredit Kammerer. In 1926, G. K. Noble of the American Museum of Natural History and Hans Przibram visited Kammerer's laboratory and demanded to see the salamander and toad specimens. They discovered that the toad's thumb pads had been injected with India ink in order to produce the black coloration and the swelling. Kammerer claimed innocence, and laid the blame on an assistant. He left Austria to take up the professorship at Moscow University which he had been offered, but committed suicide on the train. In 1971 Arthur Koestler, novelist, believing in Kammerer's innocence as well as the rightness of his ideas, to do him justice wrote The Case of the Midwife Toad. Kammerer's other presumed biological law, the law of series (Das Gesetz der Serie, 1919), has also received little credence in the scientific community.
THE KAMMERER PAPERS
1910-72. 41 items, photocopied. German & English. Table of contents, 1 p.
Copies of letters, news clippings, and articles, assembled by Hugo Iltis to document Kammerer's life as a Viennese biologist. They pertain mostly to the controversy over the inheritance of acquired characteristics, as typified by the experiments with the midwife toad. There is correspondence with Iltis and with Arthur Koestler, and an Interesting biographical sketch of Kammerer by Iltis. Presented by Hugh H. Iltis, 1973.
Kaufmann, Bervind P.
Cytogeneticist. b. April 23, 1897. d. Sept. 12, 1975. U. Pennsylvania, B.S., 1918; M.A., 1920; Ph.D., 1925. Professor, biology, Southwestern U. (Memphis), 1925-36. NRC Fellow, biological sciences, CalTech, 1932-33. Guest investigator, Carnegie Inst. Dept. Genetics (CSH), 1936-37; resident invest., 1937-62; act. director, 1960-61; director, 1961-62; professor of zoology & botany, and sr. research scientist, U. Mich. (Ann Arbor), 1962-67; emeritus prof., 1962-75. Pres., Genetics Soc. Amer., 1961. Natl. Acad. Sci., 1952.
BOOKS.
The Drosophila Guide (with M. Demerec), 1940; 8th ed. 1969.
THE KAUFMANN PAPERS
1962-67. 9 items. Mainly copies of manuscripts by Kaufmann and others regarding the teaching of genetics in medical schools, or chromosome changes produced by certain drugs.
Letters (1962): CYG, HG, BIB, G (Neurospora), DG, UPB, GP, ED (B.N. Kaufmann, son).
Correspondents:
- Deepesh, N. D.
- Klein, Richard M.
- Krivshenko, J. D.
- Schuler, Deszo
- von Borstel, R. C.
- Wimber, Donald E.
Li, Ching Chun
Population geneticist; mathematical genetics, human genetics. b. Oct. 27, 1912. Still living. B.S., Nanking U., 1936. Ph.D., Cornell U., 1940. Plant breeder, Yen Ching U. Agr. Exp. Sta., 1936-37. Asst. prof, Agr. C. Natl. Kwangsi U., 1942-43. Professor genetics & biometry, Agr. C. Nanking U., 1943-46. Prof. agronomy and dept. hd., Peking U., 1946-50. Came to the United States, 1951. U. Pittsburgh, Grad. School of Public Health, research fellow to asst, prof., 1951-58; assoc. prof. to prof, 1958-75; dept. head, 1969-75; University Professor of Biostatistics, 1975-. Naturalized citizen. Pres., Amer. Soc. Human Genetics, 1960.
BOOKS.
An Introduction to Population Genetics, 1948. Population Genetics, 1955. Human Genetics, Principles and Methods, 1961. Statistical Inference, Vol. I, 1964. Path Analysis: a Primer, 1975. First Course in Population Genetics, 1976.
THE LI PAPERS
About 50 items of correspondence, 1954-67, concerning William E. Castle's "genetics law" of 1903, a first formulation of what is today known as the Hardy-Weinberg Law, the foundation of population genetics.
Presented by C.C. Li, 1979.
Selected correspondents:
- Castle, W.E.
- Dunn, L.C.
- Keeler, Clyde
- Wright, Sewall
- Zirkle, Conway
See Mardi Bettes Fuller, "C.C. Li Papers at the American Philosophical Society," Mendel Newsletter 21:9 (1921).
Morgan, Thomas Hunt
b.Sept.25,1866. d. Dec. 12,1945. StateC. Kentucky (now U. Kentucky), B.S., summa cum laude, 1886; M.A., 1888. Ph.D., Johns Hopkins U., 1890. Bruce Fellow, Johns Hopkins U., at Naples Zool. Sta., 1890-91. Assoc. prof. biol., Bryn Mawr C., 1891-95; prof, L895-1904. Professor of experimental zoology, Columbia U., 1904-28. Prof. & head Div. Biol., California Inst. of Technology, 1928-42. Pres., Amer. Morphological Soc., 1900; pres., Amer. Soc. Naturalists, 1909; pres., Soc. Exper. Biol. & Med., 1910-1912; pres., Natl. Acad. Sci., 1927-29; pres., Amer. Assoc. Advancement of Sci., 1929; pres., Sixth Intnatl. Congr. Genetics, 1932. Darwin Medal (Roy. Soc.), 1924. Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1933. Copley Medal (Roy. Soc.), 1939. Natl. Acad. Sci., 1909. Amer. Philos. Soc., 1915.
BOOKS.
The Development of the frog's Egg: An Introduction to Experimental Embyology, 1897. Regeneration, 1901. Evolution and Adaptation, 1903. Experimental Zoology, 1907. Heredity and Sex, 1913. The Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity (with A.H. Sturtevant, H.J. Muller, and C.B. Bridges), 1915; 1923. A Critique of the Theory of Evolution 1916. Sex-linked Inheritance in Drosophila (with C.B. Bridges), 1916. The Genetic and the Operative Evidence Relating to Secondary Sexual Characters, 1919. The Physical Basis of Heredity, 1919. Some Possible Bearings of Genetics on Pathology, 1922. The Third-Chromosome Group of Mutant Characters of Drosophila melanogaster (with C.B. Bridges), 1923. Laboratory Directions for an Elementary Course in Genetics (with H. J. Muller, A. H. Sturtevant, and C. B. Bridges), 1923. Human Inheritance, 1924. Evolution and Genetics, 1925. The Genetics of Drosophila (with C. B. Bridges and A. H. Sturtevant), 1925. The Theoy of the Gene, 1926. Genetics and the Physiology of Development, 1926. Experimental Embryology, 1927. What Is Darwinism? 1929. The Scientific Basis of Evolution, 1932. Embryology and Genetics, 1934.
A. H. Sturtevant, Biog. Memoirs NAS 33:283-325 (1959). Garland E. Allen, Dict. Scient. Biog.: 9:515-526. Ian Shine and Sylvia Wrobel, Thomas Hunt Morgan: Pioneer of Genetics, 1976. Garland E. Allen, Thomas Hunt Morgan: The Man and His Science, 1978.
BIBLIOG.
See A.H. Sturtevant, op. cit.
THE MORGAN PAPERS
One box, 31 items, 1919-63 + 2 boxes (ca. 800 items) 1894-1962.
It is indeed unfortunate, as Garland Allen has commented in his biography of Morgan, that Morgan refused to save his papers and systematically destroyed the contents of his files every few years. "The rarity of a Morgan letter, then, makes every item all the more valuable, and the APS is fortunate to house a number of such items which reflect both Morgan's personal life and his scientific interests" (Mardi Bettes Fuller, Mendel Newsletter 21:6-8. 1981). It may be added that since that comment was written, a great many more of Morgan's letters have been found in the APS Library, in the papers of other geneticists who preserved them. Those in the Davenport Papers have already received a notice in the Mendel Newsletter (B. Glass, Mendel Newsletter 26:6-7. Aug., 1986). Others will be indicated below.
Morgan received a thorough grounding in animal morphology, especially of marine invertebrates, under W. K. Brooks at Johns Hopkins, and as a postdoctoral fellow for a year at the famed Naples Zoological Station. In his first academic position, at Bryn Mawr College, he collaborated in teaching the basic course in biology with Jacques Loeb, who was later to attain renown as an experimental physiologist. A leave of absence from Bryn Mawr enabled Morgan to spend another year (1894-95) at the Naples laboratory, working especially with Hans Driesch, who became a lifelong friend. It was then that Morgan declared his independence of the descriptive method of studying animals, so characteristic of W. K. Brooks, and determined to be an experimentalist -- specifically, an experimental embryologist.
Morgan began going to the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory almost from its founding in 1888, while he was still a graduate student. He became a member of its Board of Trustees in 1897, and he remained on the Board as an active member until 1937. Woods Hole was an ideal place for the sort of investigations in embryology Morgan wished to pursue. Here you could study marine animals while they were still alive.
There were other attractions, too. One of Morgan's children is said to have believed that E. B. Wilson dragged a reluctant Morgan from his research one day to meet "his brightest student" at Bryn Mawr College, Lilian Vaughan Sampson. In any case, they met, and in 1891, when Morgan arrived as a new faculty member at the college, Lilian enrolled as a graduate student and Morgan became her adviser. She received an M.A. degree in 1894. Romance came slowly. They did not become engaged until 1903, and were married in 1904, just before Morgan accepted his friend E. B. Wilson's invitation to fill a professorship at Columbia University. Morgan's interests were centered at this time upon problems of heredity and sex determination. He was, however, notoriously skeptical of the validity of Mendelism and the chromosomal theory of heredity advocated by Boveri and by Wilson and his graduate student W. S. Sutton.
While he was at Naples, Morgan had tried to repeat Boveri's experiment on the fertilization of enucleated sea urchin eggs, which Boveri said led to wholly paternal inheritance; and Morgan could not confirm the result. As a consequence, Morgan discounted Boveri's work all too heavily. Yet why he should have disregarded the superb analysis made by Sutton, which tied together the events of meiosis -- the reduction of the chromosome number in the formation of male and female gametes -- with the Mendelian segregation of alternative characters and the random fertilization of egg cells by male germ cells (sperms or pollen), is truly hard to conjecture. In any case, Morgan wrote a number of skeptical papers about Mendelism that he was later to regret -- one, in fact, that he actually deleted in later years from his bibliography. In 1908 he selected the tiny fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster in order to test where those variations important in evolution come from -- from DeVriesian mutations, as he then thought. In 1910, however, he found a recessive sex-linked mutation, white eye color. [In the Davenport Papers there is a highly interesting letter from Morgan to Davenport, dated June 11, 1910, a letter in which Morgan reports his discovery and analysis of its "sex limited inheritance," while saying not a word of the dispelling of his doubts of Mendelian inheritance or his abandonment of the dictum, "Once crossed, always mixed," which he had applied to the results obtained by Cuénot in his breeding of yellow-coated mice. The letter was sent to Davenport almost a month before Morgan submitted the paper to Science for publication. See B. Glass, "An Exciting Find: Thomas Hunt Morgan Letters," Mendel Newsletter 26:6-7, Aug. 1986.]
So the great Drosophila era of genetics, with its verification of the Chromosome Theory of Heredity, its mapping of genes according to linkage and recombination values, had begun. Already, too, in the "fly room" in Schermerhorn some extraordinary students, both graduate and undergraduate, were at work -- among them Bridges, Sturtevant, and Muller, who collaborated with Morgan in writing the book of the time, The Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity. A number of foreign holders of fellowships also arrived to join the heady atmosphere of novel theories and methods of genetical research. The first of these was probably Otto Lous Mohr, from Norway, who with his wife Tove became especially warm, lifelong friends of the Morgan family. In the late 1920s came Curt Stern and Theodosius Dobzhansky. In 1927 Morgan received an invitation to come to the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, to establish and head a Biology Division. He accepted, and took Bridges and Sturtevant with him. In planning and administrative work, however, Morgan lost his zest for Drosophila genetics, and when he resumed experimental work, it was to return to his first love, embryology, to seek once again to unite it with genetics and thereby provide a more solid basis for evolutionary theory.
"The core of the Morgan collection at the APS is comprised of twenty-eight letters and one telegram written by various members of the Morgan family and the Otto Lous Mohr family.... After his return to Norway, Mohr became professor of anatomy, and later rector, at the University of Oslo. He was a member and president of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences, and did pioneering work in human genetics and the inheritance of genetic diseases. The letters, written between 1919 and 1945, reflect all aspects of the relationship between the two families: general family gossip, news of friends and colleagues, politics, and of course work in progress. They chronicle the Mohrs' nightmarish experiences during the German occupation of Norway, and the Morgan family's trip to Scandinavia for the awarding of the Nobel Prize. Two drafts of letters nominating Morgan for the Prize, in Norwegian, from Mohr to the Nobel Committee are included in the collection, as well as letters concerning financial support of ongoing research, descriptions of the progress in mapping chromosomes, and discussions of new ideas and theories.
"Also of importance are the financial and estate records of Morgan, his wife Lilian V. S. Morgan (d. 1952) and his sister Ellen K. H. Morgan (d. 1956). These papers include not only wills, passports, letters, and other documents which detail the financial status of the family, but numerous letters between the Morgan children, Edith M. Whitaker, Howard K. Morgan, Isabel M. Mountain, and Lilian M. Scherp, letters which concern many aspects of their lives beyond the settlement of the estates.
"Three letters written to Morgan during the 1920s are contained in the collection, all of which are comments on his published work. R. R Gates, Richard Palmer, and W. P. Thompson wrote to him, about The Physical Basis of Heredity, The Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity, and The Theory of the Gene, respectively. A fourth letter, from Julian Huxley to Richard Shryock in 1963, describes some of Huxley's memories of Morgan. Finally, there is a five-page biographical sketch of C. B. Bridges which is anonymous and may well have been written by Bridges himself." (Mardi Bettes Fuller, op. cit.). Additional letters to and from T.H. Morgan may be found in the Blakeslee Papers (34 items, 1904-34), Davenport Papers (279 items, 1893-1930), Dunn Papers (21 items, 1918-45), Jennings Papers (23 items, 1907-24), Pearl Papers (64 items, 1911-31), and Stern Papers (32 items, 1927-52). See also Mardi Bettes Fuller, "Thomas Hunt Morgan Papers," Mendel Newsletter 21:6-8 (1981); Bentley Glass, "An Exciting Find: Thomas Hunt Morgan Letters," Mendel Newsletter 26, 6-7 (1986).
Olby, Robert Cecil, b. 1933
British historian of science.
THE OLBY PAPERS.
1951-63.
About 150 photocopies of correspondence, documents, etc., collected by Olby for his book The Path to the Double Helix. Included is a copy of a manuscript by F. C. Crick and James D. Watson, "The Complementary Structure of Deoxyribonucleic Acid," prepared while at CalTech. Presented by Robert C. Olby, 1969, 70.
Correspondents include:
- Brenner, Sydney
- Crick, Francis C.
- Delbrnck, Max
- Franklin, Rosalind
- Gamow, George
- Herriott, Roger M.
- Hershey, Alfred D.
- Luria, Salvador E.
- Matthaei, J.H.
- Meselson, Matthew
- Nirenberg, Marshall
- Pauling, Linus
- Rich, Alexander
- Watson, James D.
Price, Bronson
Geneticist, psychologist, statistician. b. Mar. 24, 1905. d. 1978. Antioch C., B.S., 1929. Stanford U., Ph.D., 1934. Soc. Sci. Res. Counc. Fellow, Medico-Biol. Inst. USSR, 1934-36. Instructor, Psychology and heredity-environmental problems, Ohio S.U., 1936-41. Personnel and test technician, Adj.-Gen. Off. U.S. War Dept., 1941-42. Analyst, U.S. Fed. Commun. Commn. & Off. War Inform., 1942-45. Analyst, U.S. Census Bur. Natl. Off. Vital Statist., 1945-47. Statistician, U.S. Children's Bur., Dept. Health, Educ. & Welfare, 1948-57. Statistician, U.S. Off. Educ., 1957-71. Retired, 1971.
THE PRICE PAPERS.
1934-76. About 800 items, 7000 index cards.
This collection includes correspondence and an extensive bibliographic card file assembled by Price during the course of his long-term genetics studies, from 1940 on, of twins. There is correspondence relating to genetics, eugenics (he co-authored an important article on sterilization laws in 1940), and human genetics (including the American Society of Human Genetics). The most extended correspondence, that with H. J. Muller, includes discussion of Muller's effort to organize a Foundation for Germinal Choice. Price's early study, in the 1930s, while at Stanford University, was in psychology and biometrics. This career path took him to Moscow to study with the Russian psychologist Luria as a postdoctoral fellow. The papers include many Interesting letters from this period and some later ones, recollecting his memories of science in the USSR See also his detailed comments on a condensed version of Eugene Lyons's book, Assignment in Utopia. Scattered correspondence relates to psychology and its teaching in the United States. Collection presented by Mrs. Bronson Price, 1978.
Selected correspondents:
- Bauer, Raymond
- Carter, Harold
- Challman, Robert C.
- Conrad, Herbert
- Cotterman, C. W.
- Dahlberg, Gunnar
- Dempster, Everett
- Fisher, R. A.
- Keeler, Clyde A.
- Lorimer, Frank
- Miles, Waiter
- Osborn, Frederick
- Reed, Sheldon C.
- Roscoe, Theodore
- Scheinfeld, Amram
- Stern, Curt
- Terman, Lewis M.
- Walker, Norma Ford
- White, Ralph
Wilson, Edmund Beecher
b. Oct. 19, 1856, Geneva, Ill. d. Mar. 3, 1939, New York City. Son of Judge Isaac C. and Caroline Clark Wilson. Married Anne Maynard Kidder, Dec. 27, 1904. Daughter, Nancy. Antioch C., 1873-74; U. Chicago, 1874-75; Yale U., Ph.B., 1878; Johns Hopkins U., 1878-81, Ph.D., 1881. Postdoctoral fellow, U. Leipzig, 1881-82. Lecturer, biology, Williams C., 1883-84; Mass. Inst. Tech., 1884-85. Assoc. prof. to prof, Bryn Mawr C., 1885-91; adjunct prof., 1891-94, Professor invertebrate zoology, Columbia U., and head of dept. of zool., 1894-97; prof. zoology, 1897-1909; Da Costa Prof., 1909-28; emer. prof., 1928-39; dean of faculty of pure science, 1905-06; memb. univ. counc., 1901-03, 1905-06, 1913-15.
BIOG.
T.H. Morgan, Biog. Mem. NAS. 21:315-42 (1941). H. J. Muller, Amer. Naturalist 77:5-37, 142-72 (1943). T.H. Morgan, Science 89:258-59 (1939).
BIBLIOG.
In Morgan, Biog. Mem. NAS., q.v.
SCIENTIFIC OFFICES.
Pres., N.Y. Acad. Sci., 1904. Pres., Amer. Assn. Advancement of Science, 1913.
HONORS
LL.D., Yale U., 1901; U. Chicago, 1901; Johns Hopkins U., 1902. Sc.D., Cambridge U., 1909; Harvard U., 1924; Columbia U., 1929. M.D. (hon.), U. Leipzig, 1909. Ph.D. (hon.), U. Lwow, 1926. D.H.C., U. Louvain, 1927. Member, Amer. Philos. Soc., 1888; Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.), 1899; Amer. Acad. Arts & Sci., Assoc., 1901, Res. Fellow, 1911. Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal (zool.), Natl. Acad. Sci., 1928. Gold Medal, Linnean Soc. London, 1928.
BOOKS.
General Biology (with W.T. Sedgwick), 1887. Atlas of Karyokinesis and Fertilization, 1895. The Cell in Development and Heredity, 1896. The Cell in Development and Inheritance, 1900, 1925. The Physical Basis of Life, 1923.
THE WILSON PAPERS.
Private journal, 1903-28, a ledger containing business affairs of the Department of Zoology at Columbia University: records of graduate students, exams taken, requirements fulfilled; petty expenses 1904-05; rules 1905; assistants' pay, assignments; enrollments in courses; Cell Biology exams 1908, 1909, 1911, 1913, 1914; Cellular Embryology; Invert. Zool., 1928.
Zool. 201: topics, 1907-13 [Ethel N. Browne (later Harvey), Fernandus Payne, A.I. Goldfarb, A.F. Shull, S.D. Streeter, Packard, E. Newton-Harvey, Pollister, Harnly, Schultz, Muller, Altenburg, Goodrich, Bridges, Metz, Sturtevant, Goodale, Curt Stern, Shumway, Weinstein, McEwen, Gowen, Huettner, Severinghaus, Lancefield, Plunkett, Bergner, Bliss, Romer, Schrader].
Columbia Table, Naples, 1908-09. Woods Hole Lab., 1913. Notebook: "Systematic Work" 1875-76. Beautiful drawings of coelenterates, tunicates, crustaceans, annelids, and mollusks, with notes. Notebook: "Anatomical Work." (Work done under A. E. Verrill at Yale U.) Parts A and B. Annelids, echinoderms, insects, batrachians; some mollusks.
Wilson was "among the most important and prolific biologists in the last part of the nineteenth and first part of the twentieth centuries" (Garland Allen). His scientific career may be divided into three major portions. In the first part, 1879-91, he was concerned with descriptive embryology, morphology, and cell lineage. The second period, 1891-1903, was devoted to experimental embryology, differentiation, and artificial parthenogenesis. In the third part of his career, 1903-38, Wilson concentrated on the problems of the cellular basis of heredity. Following the line of development of his mentor in Europe, Theodor Boveri, Wilson was concerned with the importance of the chromosomes in heredity. He worked on the prelocalization of formative substances in the egg, on chromosome movements, on spindle formation, on the independence and replication of the chromosomes. His graduate student, Walter S. Sutton, in 1902, on the basis of his studies of the chromosomes in a locust, set forth the basic postulates of the chromosome theory of heredity. After McClung had discovered the existence of sex chromosomes in 1902 but failed to determine the precise way in which they acted, Wilson, at first alone and then in collaboration with Nettle Stevens, worked out the chromosomal distinctions in many different species of insects, some with XY males and others with XO males. Wilson discovered the occasional non-disjunction of the X and Y chromosomes during meiosis, found cytological evidence of crossing over between homologous chromosomes during their synapsis, and was intrigued by the extra-chromosomal inheritance of organelles. His masterpiece was the third edition of The Cell in Inheritance and Development, which summarized and critically evaluated the enormous amount of research done on the cell in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Wilson's papers do not appear to have been preserved, except for these fragments of records from his graduate courses at Columbia University. Those records, however, and his comments on individual students who later became recognized, or even famous, biologists, are invaluable. The two notebooks show what careful work in dissection and observation and what elegant drawing were characteristic of Wilson in his early graduate study.
Zirkle, Conway
b. Richmond, Va.,, Oct. 28, 1895. d. 1972. Botanist, cytologist, science historian. U. Virginia, A.B., 1921; M.S., 1921. Johns Hopkins U., Ph.D., 1925. Instructor, botany, U. Virginia, 1920-21. Asst., botany, Johns Hopkins U., 1921-24. NRC fellow, Harvard U., 1924-28; res. assoc., 1928-30. U. Pennsylvania, assoc. prof. botany, 1930-37; professor, 1937-1965. Pres., Biol. Stain Commission, 1965-68.
BOOKS.
The Beginnings of Plant Hybridization, 1935; Death of a Science in Russia, 1949; Evolution, Marxian Biology and the Social Scene, 1959; (with M.J. Sirks) The Evolution of Biology, 1964.
THE ZIRKLE PAPERS.
About 1000 items; 1.5 In. ft. 1948-66. Table of contents, 4 pp. Presented by the Bryn Mawr College Library, 1972.
The papers are mostly related to Zirkle's interest in the history of science, especially his research on the Lysenko controversy in the USSR [see Death of a Science in Russia]. There are clippings and translations from Pravda, and articles concerning Russian science written by L.C. Dunn, H. J. Muller, Th. Dobzhansky, and I. N. Vavilov. Other items concern Zirkle's other publications, and letters of congratulation upon his retirement. A miscellaneous item of interest is a 1917 memo from James M. Cattell to the Committee on Academic Freedom regarding Cattell's dismissal from the faculty of Columbia University. There are also four volumes of specimens of pressed algae, ferns, and other plants.