Description
Papers of Francis Bertody Sumner, one of the first Scripps Institution of Oceanography biologists, and his family. The collection
consists of correspondence, academic papers and reports, photo albums and prints, scrapbooks, and records of the Sumner Club.
Background
Francis Bertody Sumner (1874-1945) was a professor of biology at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He received his
undergraduate degree in 1894 from the University of Minnesota, and began work on his Ph.D. in zoology in 1895 at Columbia
University. In 1899, Sumner and two colleagues from Columbia undertook an expedition to Egypt to study African fish. Sumner
received his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1901.
Sumner was director of the Woods Hole Laboratory of the Bureau of Fisheries from 1903-1911, where he prepared a report on
all of the marine flora and fauna in the area. In 1910, he made a six-month voyage with his wife and daughter to Italy. The
trip was primarily for leisure, but Sumner did use the opportunity to visit the Stazione Zoologica in Naples. From 1911-1913,
he served as the naturalist aboard the U.S.F.C. steamer Albatross, conducting a biological and hydrographic study of San Francisco Bay.
Extent
3 Linear feet
(4 archives boxes and 3 oversized volumes)
Restrictions
Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.
Availability
COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE. ALLOW ONE WEEK FOR RETRIEVAL OF MATERIALS.