Collection context
Summary
- Language:
- English.
Background
- Scope and content:
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The Morgan papers contain correspondence, technical and course material, papers relating to the formation of the Biology Division at Caltech and other administrative matters, and a small amount of biographical material.
A portion of the materials relating to Morgan's career prior to Caltech have been assembled from the American Philosophical Society (correspondence) and Princeton University (the E. G. Conklin Papers). These are in xerographic form in Box 6.
The original arrangement and description of the collection was done in 1971 by Phoebe Sturtevant, the wife of A. H. Sturtevant. Descriptions of the contents of folders, as well as the item counts, are hers and have been retained in the present guide.
In 1996, files pertaining to the Marine Biology Laboratory at Corona Del Mar, originally included by Mrs. Sturtevant in the Morgan papers, were removed to the Albert Tyler Papers. Users of the collection should consult the Tyler papers, as well as those of C. A. G. Wiersma, and A. H. Sturtevant for further Morgan material.
Charlotte E. Erwin
Associate Archivist - Biographical / historical:
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Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866-1945) is best known for his study of heredity in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. He also contributed significantly to descriptive and experimental embryology, cytology, and evolutionary theory. For his work in establishing the chromosome theory of heredity--the idea that genes are located in a linear array on chromosomes--Morgan was awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1933.
After graduating from the University of Kentucky in 1886, Morgan undertook graduate study in zoology at Johns Hopkins University. From there he took a position at Bryn Mawr College, where he remained until 1904, when he was offered the chair of experimental zoology at Columbia University. At Bryn Mawr he met and married Lilian Vaughan Sampson, who was a distinguished cytologist and took an active role in her husband's work.
In 1927, Caltech officials approached Morgan, who was then 62 years old, with the proposal to come to Pasadena to set up a new biology program. Funds were to be provided by the Rockefeller Foundation and various private donors. In 1928, Morgan began the last phase of his career, the recruitment of a first-rate team of experimental geneticists to Caltech, among them A. H. Sturtevant, Calvin Bridges, Theodore Dobzhansky, Albert Tyler, the Dutch biologist C. A. G. Wiersma, and in plant genetics, Ernest Anderson and Sterling Emerson.
- Physical description:
- Number of containers: 10 boxes Linear feet: 5
Access and use
- Location of this collection:
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1200 E. California Blvd.MC B215-74Pasadena, CA 91125, US
- Contact:
- (626) 395-2704