Edmund B. Wilson was a biologist and zoologist.

Wilson was "among the most important and prolific biologists in the last part of the nineteenth and first part of the twentieth centuries" (Garland Allen). His scientific career may be divided into three major portions. In the first part, 1879-1891, he was concerned with descriptive embryology, morphology, and cell lineage. The second period, 1891-1903, was devoted to experimental embryology, differentiation, and artificial parthenogenesis. In the third part of his career, 1903-1938, Wilson concentrated on the problems of the cellular basis of heredity. Following the line of development of his mentor in Europe, Theodor Boveri, Wilson was concerned with the importance of the chromosomes in heredity. He worked on the prelocalization of formative substances in the egg, on chromosome movements, on spindle formation, on the independence and replication of the chromosomes. His graduate student, Walter S. Sutton, in 1902, on the basis of his studies of the chromosomes in a locust, set forth the basic postulates of the chromosome theory of heredity. After McClung had discovered the existence of sex chromosomes in 1902 but failed to determine the precise way in which they acted, Wilson, at first alone and then in collaboration with Nettie Stevens, worked out the chromosomal distinctions in many different species of insects, some with XY males and others with XO males. Wilson discovered the occasional non-disjunction of the X and Y chromosomes during meiosis, found cytological evidence of crossing over between homologous chromosomes during their synapsis, and was intrigued by the extra-chromosomal inheritance of organelles. His masterpiece was the third edition of The Cell in Inheritance and Development, which summarized and critically evaluated the enormous amount of research done on the cell in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Wilson's papers do not appear to have been preserved, except for these fragments of records from his graduate courses at Columbia University. Those records, however, and his comments on individual students who later became recognized, or even famous, biologists, are invaluable. The notebooks show what careful work in dissection and observation and what elegant drawing were characteristic of Wilson in his early graduate study.

Physical description

4 volumes.

Provenance

Presented by John A. Moore and accessioned, 12/10/1970 (1970 2048-51ms).

Physiology, Biochemistry, and Biophysics Note

Edmund B. Wilson was a highly prolific biologist and a central figure within the network of scientists (among them Flexner, Morgan, Whitman, Lillie, and Loeb) who built up American biology at the turn of the century. His scientific career, first at Bryn Mawr College and then at Columbia University, evolved through three major research phases; these developments mirrored some of the wider trends in American biology as it moved from descriptive to experimental modes of inquiry. The first period, 1879-1891, was concerned with descriptive embryology, morphology, and cell lineage. The second phase, 1891-1903, focused on experimental embryology, differentiation, and artificial parthenogenesis. Between 1903 and 1938, Wilson (with frequent interactions with Morgan's Drosophila group nearby) directed his energies to problems of the cellular basis of heredity. His grand synthesis, The Cell in Inheritance and Development (1900, 1925), and the many students he trained shaped the course of experimental biology. Wilson's papers do not seem to have been preserved, with the exception of these fragments of records from his graduate courses at Columbia. The materials include a private journal (1903-1928), a ledger containing administrative information on Columbia's department of zoology, and records of graduate students (among them A. Franklin Shull, Jack Schultz, Hermann J. Muller, Calvin B. Bridges, Alfred H. Sturtevant, Rebecca Lancefield, and Curt Stern). The various details on course enrollments, requirements, exams, and assistants, combined with Wilson's two notebooks (with observations and drawings) form a vivid record of the early period of academic biology in America.

Genetics Note

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

• Columbia University. -- Dept. of Zoology -- Students.
• Yale University -- Students.

• Journals (notebooks).
• Laboratory notebooks.
• Sketches.

• Anatomy -- Study and teaching.
• Zoology -- Study and teaching.