This collection contains primarily professional correspondence and papers, but there is substantial material concerning Shryock family history. Most of the collection relates to Shryock's intellectual and social life at the University of Pennsylvania, Duke University, and Johns Hopkins University-- institutions where he made contributions as a professor of history and especially as a medical historian.

This is a diverse collection, including correspondence, drafts of letters, notes and notebooks (on biometric methods; tables and formulae; science, nature and method; coefficient and correlation; vitalism; Japanese language); commonplace book (1924); autobiography; and over one hundred folders of unpublished writings. The correspondence and other material covers a variety of topics, including biology, eugenics, evolution and natural selection, human heredity, paramecia, protozoa genetics, U.S. immigration policy. There is much on the Seventh International Congress of Zoology (1907); letters to his father and wives, and from students and colleagues on his seventy-fifth birthday, 1943 (1 v.); diplomas and certificates of membership; and photographs.

Raymond Pearl spent the majority of his academic career (1918-1940) at Johns Hopkins University, where he was Professor of Biometry and Vital Statistics and Director of the Institute of Biological Research. Founder of the Quarterly Review of Biology and Human Biology, he made significant contributions in the areas of biology, genetics, eugenics, and statistics. The Pearl Papers includes correspondence as well as notebooks, scrapbooks, diplomas, photographs, and 33 volumes of diaries. There is significant correspondence with his wife, Maud (ca. 500 letters), and mother, Ida May (ca. 300 letters), particularly for the years 1895-1934. Of special note is Pearl's correspondence with his friend, colleague, and fellow Baltimoreian, H. L. Mencken (ca. 500 letters). The collection contains important information on the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, The Baltimore Sun, the Birth Control Federation of America, Dartmouth College, the International Institute of Statistics, Johns Hopkins University, and the National Academy of Sciences. This note is currently under review for revision.

William Jacob Robbins (1890-1978, APS 1941) was a botanist and physiologist. From 1937 to 1957 he was director of the New York Botanical Garden. His research focused on culture methods of plants in relation to biochemistry and nutrition, especially on the synthetic abilities of fungi. His studies paralleled the scientific agenda of the Rockefeller Foundation, an agency with which he was closely associated for years as adviser and trustee. He was perhaps the most influential botanist in the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) during the early postwar era, and a principal participant in the plans for the global reconstruction of science. Robbins served as president of the American Philosophical Society from 1956 to 1959.