Provenance

Acquired, 1974.

Preferred citation

Cite as: Alexander Hollaender Papers, American Philosophical Society.

Processing information

Recatalogued by Leigh McCuen, June 2003.

Other finding aids

The Hollaender Papers are also described in Bentley Glass' A Guide to the Genetics Collections of the APS.

Related material

The Archives of Radiation Biology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville hold many of Hollaender's papers, records, and books on radiation biology. Additional papers of Hollaender can be found at the University of Texas, Galveston.

Additional Hollaender correspondence is located in the Demerec Papers (79 items).

Physiology, Biochemistry, and Biophysics Note

Alexander Hollaender was educated at the University of Wisconsin, receiving his doctorate in physical chemistry in 1931. These were exciting times to be at Wisconsin, surrounded by scientists like Max Mason, Warren Weaver, John Warren Williams, and Theodor Svedberg, men who in the early 1930s would spearhead the merger of physics, chemistry, and biology under the aegis of the Rockefeller Foundation. Hollaender became an active participant in these intellectual and institutional endeavors. He remained associated with Wisconsin until 1937, working on problems of radiation genetics and chemical mutagenesis (he was one of the first researchers to point out the significance of nucleic acids in mutagenesis). He was also an adviser to the Rockefeller Foundation on the development of molecular biology, and was involved in administering Rockefeller Fellowships and projects of the National Research Council.

In 1937 Hollaender moved to the Washington Biophysics Institute of the National Institutes of Health as an associate biologist, and soon after was promoted as senior biophysicist, a position he held until 1950. By that time Hollaender had established himself as a world authority on radiation genetics. He served as director of the division of biology at the Atomic Energy Commission's Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 1946 to 1966, and as a senior research adviser from 1967 until his retirement in 1972. His personal papers have been deposited at the University of Tennessee.

The Hollaender Papers at the APS Library document his activities in postwar radiation genetics, a field addressing biological problems in relation to the newly unleashed powers of atomic energy. These communications, together with the files on radiation genetics, form an important source on the history of that field and its relations to social concerns, environmental issues, and cancer research.

Genetics Note

This collection contains materials which relate to the history of genetics.