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.

The American Eugenics Society Records is a small, selective collection offering information on various periods of the Society's development, including correspondence, membership records, and formal and informal material on its history. Of particular interest are the records of the Society's numerous committees, including the Executive Education, Population Genetics Research, Legislative, and local and state committees, and documentation of AES educational initiatives at state fairs and eugenic health exhibits and contests, especially the Fitter Family Contests. A scrapbook containing 97 images of Fitter Family and eugenic health exhibits, 1924-1926, provides valuable visual information of AES activities. One series in the collection relates to the numerous Princeton Conferences and to a genealogical survey of the populations of Shutesbury and Leverett, Massachusetts, and there is also material on the Population Council. The collection largely revolves around Frederick Osborn, the moving force in the Society for most of its later history, and it includes approximately 100 papers written or delivered by Osborn concerning eugenics, genetics, or population related topics. This note is currently under review for revision.