A prolific and decorated scholar, a talented and hard-working administrator, and an encouraging and supportive mentor, Frederick Mosteller was one of the leading statisticians of the twentieth century. He wrote and edited over 50 books and published nearly 350 papers. He was instrumental in establishing the Statistics Department at Harvard University, where he taught and administered for over 50 years. Mosteller contributed to numerous studies in wide-ranging fields from social sciences to healthcare to education. His work was widely recognized and hailed as influential, both in its breadth and content. He was celebrated as both a scholar and leader in statistics. The Mosteller Papers are an important source for scholars in multiple disciplines, both for those interested in particular ground-breaking studies, and for those interested in the history of statistics and statistical methodology. The Mosteller Papers provide an interesting insight into the work of Frederick Mosteller. Including correspondence, manuscripts, printed matter, and awards and certificates, the collection is comprised of twenty linear feet of material from Mosteller's professional life. The collection contains expansive records of Mosteller's time at Harvard University, as a scholar, a teacher, and an administrator. It includes insight into his thoughts, his works, and his activities. Throughout his long and illustrative career, Mosteller collaborated with a wide variety of experts in diverse fields, and contributed to numerous committees and studies, both within academia and in a wider milieu, and the papers attest to that.

A philosopher, metaphysician, and mathematician, Chauncey Wright graduated from Harvard in 1852 and taught occasionally at the College while employed as a "computer" with the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac. A positivist and empiricist in the British tradition, he exerted an influence on the development of American Pragmatism through his younger friends William James, Charles S. Peirce, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, but is perhaps best remembered as one of the earliest and most able defenders of Darwinism and Darwinian natural selection. The bulk of the 137 items in the Wright Papers is comprised of personal letters addressed to Wright during the adult years of his brief life. From the typical letters of a college student, the correspondence branches out to touch upon philosophy, mathematics, and Wright's meeting with Darwin in 1872. Among the more prominent correspondents are C. S. Peirce, Charles Eliot Norton, Francis Bowen, Susan and J. Peter Lesley, and James Bradley Thayer and William Sydney Thayer.

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.

These are chiefly working papers on subjects requiring statistical analysis and letters, reports, and papers relating to professional organizations. There is little personal material.