Ca. 100 items.
Presented by Philip E. Hartman and accessioned, 1980 (1980 1818ms).
The history of the Cold Spring Harbor laboratories began in 1904 with the Station for Experimental Evolution (later renamed Department of Genetics), sponsored by the Carnegie Institution of Washington. In 1924, the Long Island Biological Association established a summer research institute on the Station's grounds that soon emphasized physico-chemical biology. The Cold Spring Harbor summer symposia in quantitative biology, which began in 1933, became intellectual markers in physiology, biochemistry, and biophysics. In the early 1940s, under the energetic directorship of Milislav Demerec, the Department of Genetics and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories were consolidated, becoming by the late 1940s an international center of molecular genetics. Due in part to the catalytic growth of the symposia and research activities, the 1950s were a time of reorganization, to equip the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories better for its leadership role in the life sciences. Apart from brief historical accounts, the Cold Spring Harbor Collection provides little material on the formative years of the laboratory, but it does document the second phase of its history. The material in the Cold Spring Harbor Collection includes correspondence, reports, and minutes of meetings. The collection is complemented by the Milislav Demerec Papers (B D394), which contain sources on the earlier history of Cold Spring Harbor, and by the Charles Davenport Papers (B D27), which contain two series of Cold Spring Harbor records from its earlier phase.
