University of California, Berkeley. Department of Genetics Collection, American Philosophical Society

Table of contents

Abstract

In 1912, the University of California, Berkeley, became the first university in the nation to form a separate Department of Genetics. The first two appointments in the department went to plant geneticists Ernest Brown Babcock and Roy E. Clausen, and as the department grew slowly, shifting slightly away from its roots in agricultural science, it gained a strong reputation as an important center for research in several areas in genetics and evolutionary biology.

The U.C. Berkeley Department of Genetics Collection contains a selective sampling of correspondence relating to the organization and early history of the nation's first Department of Genetics. Centered in the years 1912-1930, the collection consists primarily of correspondence to and from Babcock and Clausen, pertaining to their research, administrative matters, and the genetical community. Prominent among their correspondents are George H. Shull, Thomas Hunt Morgan, A. H. Sturtevant, and H. J. Muller.

Background note
Scope & content
Administrative information
Additional information
- Related material
- Bibliography
Added entries
Contact information
Collection inventory
- Correspondence, 1911-1947
- Printed material, 1917-1945

Background note

In the early days of Mendelian genetics, the University of California, Berkeley, became the first university in the nation to establish a separate Department of Genetics. Ernest B. Babcock, an assistant professor of agricultural education who had pioneered a course in plant and animal breeding in 1912, was selected to head the new department in July 1913, and after receiving his PhD in May 1914, Roy E. Clausen was appointed as his assistant.

Initially, the thrust of research in the department centered on Babcock's interest in plant breeding and the evolution of the genus Crepis and Clausen's in the genus Nicotiana, however by the 1920s, members of the department were involved in research on biosystematics, the genetics of Drosophila, cytogenetics, and radiation genetics. Babcock and Clauisen co-authored a volume Genetics in Relation to Agriculture (1918, 2nd ed. 1927). Botyh Babcock and Clausen were elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Five of the 11 faculty members of the department were elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and four were chosen Faculty Research Lecturers. The department was eventually absorbed into the Department of Integrative Biology.

Scope and content

The U.C. Berkeley Department of Genetics Collection contains a selective sampling of correspondence relating to the organization, early history, and research of the nation's first Department of Genetics. Centered in the years 1912-1930, the collection consists primarily of correspondence to and from the founding members of the department, Ernest Brown Babcock and Roy E. Clausen, pertaining to their research interests, administrative matters, and the genetical community. Prominent among their correspondents are George H. Shull, Thomas Hunt Morgan, A. H. Sturtevant, and H. J. Muller.

Babcock appears to have had a particularly close relationship with George H. Shull, and their correspondence forms by far the most extensive part of the collection. Although Babcock was unsucessful in his attempt to win an appointment for Shull at Berkeley, the two maintained a close scientific correspondence, discussing their work in plant breeding, cytogenetics, and the relative status of botanical and animal genetics. In November 1944, Shull sent a lengthy autobiographical letter to Babcock, who was then considering writing a history of genetics.

Centered largely on Drosophila, the correspondence from Morgan, Muller, and Sturtevant is somewhat less extensive, but nevertheless interesting for reconstructing aspects of that research as well as the relations between the department at Berkeley and the groups at Columbia and later Cal Tech. In 1926, Morgan was one of those who intervened with Babcock to secure a position for John Belling, recovering from a bout of "acute melancholia."

Among the interesting miscellaneous items is a letter from the Australian geneticist, W. E. Agar (regarding the largely negative influence of his former advisor, William Bateson), an outline and course notes from Babcock's course in genetics, 1915, and William E. Castle's autobiographical "Memorandum on the beginning of Genetic Studies at Harvard University, 1901-1915." Also of note is a letter from Babcock to A. Franklin Shull, Feb. 6, 1934, in which Babcock makes the prescient suggestion that they organize a symposium to investigate "whether anything can be done in the way of interpreting the paleontological processes in terms of modern genetical concepts," and to discuss the integration of genetics and evolutionary processes in plants and animals.

The collection is organized alphabetically by writer, and then alphabetically by correspondent.

Administrative information

Restrictions

None.

Provenance

Gift of the University of California, Berkeley, Department of Genetics, March 1967.

Preferred citation

Cite as: University of California, Berkeley. Department of Genetics Collection, American Philosophical Society.

Processing information

Recatalogued by rsc, April 2003.

Alternate formats

The Collection has been microfilmed (Film 1441).

Other finding aids

The U.C. Berkeley Department of Genetics Collection is also described in Bentley Glass's A Guide to the Genetics Collections of the APS.

Additional information

Related material

Babcock appears as a correspondent in the papers of Milislav Demerec (B D394) and Albert Blakeslee (B B585).

The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, houses an additional 2 feet of papers of Ernest Brown Babcock.

References

Babcock, Ernest Brown and Roy Elwood Clausen, Genetics in Relation to Agriculture (N.Y., 1918). Call no.: 575.13 B11g.

Babcock, Ernest Brown and J. L. Collins, Genetics Laboratory Manual (N.Y., 1918). Call no.: 575.1 B11s.