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1.Title:  Theodosius Dobzhansky Diaries (1934-1975)
 Dates:  1934 - 1975 
 Extent:  47 volumes  
 Locations:  Adelaide | Auckland | Basel | Bogota | Bombay | Boston | Brisbane | Cairns | Cairo | Caracas | Casablanca | Christchurch | Dublin | Florence | Geneva | Gothenburg | Houston | London | Marseille | Melbourne | New York | Paris | Perugia | Philadelphia | Rennes | Rome | San Salvador | São Paulo | Stockholm | Thessaloniki | Wellington 
 Abstract:  The Dobzhansky Papers feature 47 volumes spanning 1934-1975. (The boxes in which they are enclosed also include other notebooks and workbooks without sequential entries.) These diaries ought to interest researchers studying genetics and evolutionary biology, early-twentieth-century travel expeditions (particularly into the Amazon), the creationist debate (especially in textbooks and public schools), the post-war university (Columbia University, in particular), South American politics, and Dobzhansky's biography. 
    
Russian-readers will be richly rewarded, given that Dobzhansky modulates entries between Russian and English. In some entries, he self-consciously reflects on the language he opts to use. For example, on February 16, 1952, he imagines his child (Sophie) as the audience of his entries: "I am switching to English, in order that my child would find it easier to accompany her father's experiences, is she wants to accompany them."
 
Even in diaries recorded predominantly in Russian, Dobzhansky encloses numerous ephemera—business cards, letters, hand-drawn sketches, recognitions/awards, medical test results, newspaper clippings, and more—accessible to English-speakers. In many of his diaries from the 1950s and 1960s, typed letters provide some insights into his thoughts on health, mortality, and faith (e.g. 2/16/1952, 5/16/1957, 7/16/1968, 10/13/1969)
 
(strained) relations with his children (e.g. 5/16/1957, 10/28/1968, 12/31/1968)
 
and career (3/25/1970
 
6/30/1970, 1/25/1975).
 
Dobzhansky traveled widely, providing particularly detailed accounts of South America and the American West. While English entries largely abstains from discussing politics, he does occasionally discuss Brazilian politics (e.g. 9/7/1954, 10/16/1955), and the election of Richard Nixon, about whom he is consistently critical (e.g. 11/6/1970, 12/31/1973, 8/8/1974).
 
Throughout his four decades of journal-writing, Dobzhansky expresses one consistent concern: his desire to continue doing useful work. Marking his final birthday, he writes, "So, I have lived ¾ of a century. Today begins the last quarter, or rather past thereof…Oh God, give me power to finish my life serving you by doing my life work in science! In 75 years I have not yet exhausted either my interest or, I hope, my ability" (1/25/1975).
 
    
The Dobzhansky Papers feature 47 volumes spanning 1934-1975. (The boxes in which they are enclosed also include other notebooks and workbooks without sequential entries.) These diaries ought to interest researchers studying genetics and evolutionary biology, early-twentieth-century travel expeditions (particularly into the Amazon), the creationist debate (especially in textbooks and public schools), the post-war university (Columbia University, in particular), South American politics, and Dobzhansky's biography.
 
Russian-readers will be richly rewarded, given that Dobzhansky modulates entries between Russian and English. In some entries, he self-consciously reflects on the language he opts to use. For example, on February 16, 1952, he imagines his child (Sophie) as the audience of his entries: "I am switching to English, in order that my child would find it easier to accompany her father's experiences, is she wants to accompany them."
 
Even in diaries recorded predominantly in Russian, Dobzhansky encloses numerous ephemera—business cards, letters, hand-drawn sketches, recognitions/awards, medical test results, newspaper clippings, and more—accessible to English-speakers. In many of his diaries from the 1950s and 1960s, typed letters provide some insights into his thoughts on health, mortality, and faith (e.g. 2/16/1952, 5/16/1957, 7/16/1968, 10/13/1969)
 
(strained) relations with his children (e.g. 5/16/1957, 10/28/1968, 12/31/1968)
 
and career (3/25/1970
 
6/30/1970, 1/25/1975).
 
Dobzhansky traveled widely, providing particularly detailed accounts of South America and the American West. While English entries largely abstains from discussing politics, he does occasionally discuss Brazilian politics (e.g. 9/7/1954, 10/16/1955), and the election of Richard Nixon, about whom he is consistently critical (e.g. 11/6/1970, 12/31/1973, 8/8/1974).
 
Throughout his four decades of journal-writing, Dobzhansky expresses one consistent concern: his desire to continue doing useful work. Marking his final birthday, he writes, "So, I have lived ¾ of a century. Today begins the last quarter, or rather past thereof…Oh God, give me power to finish my life serving you by doing my life work in science! In 75 years I have not yet exhausted either my interest or, I hope, my ability" (1/25/1975).
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  Selected Quotations
  • Explanation for switching to English: "I am switching to English, in other than my child would find it easier to accompany her father's experiences, is she wants to accompany them. I am going through strong spiritual crisis, and hope that it results to be beneficial. The starting point is, of course, a fear of death, and a fear that death may be close…I feel a terrific desire to live and all my soul rebels against death. But whatever comes has to be accepted, although acceptance is not easy. So, a new spiritual balance has to be found. It can be found only by renunciation of personal vanity, pride, and ambition, and mainly through love—love of the world as it is, and seen as it is. I have to reach this, however difficult it may be for my passionately self-assertive nature. Have decided to write an article on evolution as a basis of a religious world view. But it will not be [polished] but laid to rest. If I live develop it, possibly to a book form. If I die, it must be polished posthumously. Other plans will have to wait for Tuesday when I see the physician specialist on thyroid" (2/16/1952)

  • On his forced retirement: "No use pretending, it is a terribly sad day. It is the last day of my being a regularly employed, active, recognized professor. Tomorrow I shall be emeritus, retired, discarded, pensioner. This after 50 or 51 teaching in institution of higher learning—50 since I became "assistant" in zoology in my faculty of agriculture, 51 since I started teaching at the ["Rablek"] in Kiev University. Tomorrow, I have no official duty, old, at best tolerated in same laboratory, superfluous "senior" member, waiting for death to remove this relic." (6/30/1970)

  • Nixon's resignation: "What a day—the news of Nixon's resignation! And it was less than 2 years go this sinister crook was at [that] time well known to be a crook, was elected by two-thirds of the American electorate. A bad recommendation for democracy which do that. And yet today's event is a high mark for the same democracy—a crook can eventually be kicked out. This cannot happen in a communist dictatorship, where Watergate would never become known, and if it were know[n] would be considered a normal government measure. Anyway, I was fearful that I will not outlive Nixon's presidency. I did outlive him. But for him, sic transit gloria mundi, though he is crook, what a fall from what a height" (8/8/1974)
 
 Subjects:  Australia. | Central America. | Columbia University | Creationism. | Diaries. | Europe. | Evolutionary developmental biology. | Expedition | Genetics. | Higher education & society | Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913-1994. | Race. | Russians--United States. | Science. | South America. | Travel. | United States--Civilization--1945- | United States--Politics and government. | University of California, Davis 
 Collection:  Theodosius Dobzhansky Papers  (Mss.B.D65)  
  Go to the collection
 
2.Title:  Victor Heiser Diaries (1890-1972)
 Dates:  1890 - 1972 
 Extent:  86 volumes  
 Locations:  Agra | Amrapali | Apia | Athens | Bangkok | Beijing | Beirut | Berlin | Bontoc | Cairo | Calcutta | Caluya | Chiang Mai | Chicago | Colombo | Damascus | Dehli | Guam | Guatemala City | Hong Kong | Honolulu | Jaipur | Java | Jerusalem | Johnstown | Jolo | Kabayan | La Chorrera | Lancaster | Litchfield | London | Los Angeles | Luzon | Madrid | Madurai | Manila | Mexico City | Moscow | Naples | Nashville | New York | Nueva Vizcaya | Panama Canal | Paris | Philadelphia | Pittsburg | Port-au-Prince | Rome | Sagada | San Carlos | San Juan | San Salvador | Sarawak | Seoul | Shanghai | Singapore | Sumatra | Tokyo | Vatican | Washington D.C. | Worcester | Zamboanga 
 Abstract:  By any measure, public health leader Victor George Heiser lived a long, productive, and vigorous life. His 86 diaries (1890-1972) predate the Spanish-American War and post-date U.S. escalation in Vietnam, while his career in public health put him in contact with politicians, diplomats, ambassadors, and government officials across the globe. An astute political observer, Heiser offers rich, on-the-ground insights into twentieth-century history as it unfolded, from the rise of Gandhi to the fall of Hitler. His 1920s and 1930s entries also offer candid explanations of and justifications for dictatorship. The Heiser diaries may interest a wide range of scholars, including those researching the history of science, American public health policy in the Philippines, the history of Zionism and Israeli statehood, colonialism in Asia (most especially India), and Europe between World War I and World War II. 
    
The Heiser diaries are without peer when it comes to their scope--spanning the first seven decades of the twentieth-century--global reach, and detail. Scholars exploring the history of medicine might gravitate towards entries related to his public health work in the Philippines (1908-1916). Researchers interested in the history of zionism will be richly rewarded by volumes from 1922 and 1926--an excerpt from Heiser's July 1922 journey to Palestine is excerpted in Selected Quotations. And those interested in colonial India will discover a numerous reflections on Gandhi and 1920s non-violent resistance movements (also excerpted in Selected Quotations).
 
Perhaps most surprising are Heiser's detailed accounts of European travel between the 1920s and 1930s, during which he expresses some sympathy for nationalist movements. Traveling war-torn Italy, he remarked on there "appears to be unanimous agreement among natives and foreigners" that the new prime minister, Benito Mussolini, "has accomplished extraordinary results and that he is honest and genuinely patriotic" (11/19/1923). Several years later, he documents the nation's progress in developing infrastructure and improving services. He concludes his 4/29/1926 entry with an ominous justification for fascism: "Democracy gradually became so inefficient that all came to a standstill and a dictator was able to start the machinery on an effective basis."
 
Heiser traveled widely during the decade preceding World War II. In the late-1930s, he returned to Italy and decries the ubiquitous military presence, government propaganda, and oppressive taxation. And yet, he ends his entry with a section entitled "The Other Side." Heiser writes: "A whole new social order has been created. Instead of people finding fault with what government fails in, the press and government propaganda constantly drive into their ears what government is doing for the people. (In the end will this not produce more peace of mind and happiness than our democratic way of emphasizing fault-finding)" (4/25/1937).
 
On the topic of promoting public happiness, Heiser draws a similar conclusion during a contemporaneous visit to Germany. While he decries the Nazi government's "censorship, prohibitions and [intrusion into] one's private affairs," he adds: "And yet one begins to wonder whether there is not much to be said in favor of the good type of dictatorships, in promoting human happiness. In democracies people are [annoyed] to say or think little of the good things government does for them and to place main emphasis upon petty fault finding" (6/3/1937). Finally, just one year prior to the outbreak of World War II, Heiser pens perhaps his most generous account of dictatorships. That account, "Further Impressions Dictatorships," is excerpted in Selected Quotations.
 
    
By any measure, public health leader Victor George Heiser lived a long, productive, and vigorous life. His 86 diaries (1890-1972) predate the Spanish-American War and post-date U.S. escalation in Vietnam, while his career in public health put him in contact with politicians, diplomats, ambassadors, and government officials across the globe. An astute political observer, Heiser offers rich, on-the-ground insights into twentieth-century history as it unfolded, from the rise of Gandhi to the fall of Hitler. His 1920s and 1930s entries also offer candid explanations of and justifications for dictatorship. The Heiser diaries may interest a wide range of scholars, including those researching the history of science, American public health policy in the Philippines, the history of Zionism and Israeli statehood, colonialism in Asia (most especially India), and Europe between World War I and World War II.
 
The Heiser diaries are without peer when it comes to their scope--spanning the first seven decades of the twentieth-century--global reach, and detail. Scholars exploring the history of medicine might gravitate towards entries related to his public health work in the Philippines (1908-1916). Researchers interested in the history of zionism will be richly rewarded by volumes from 1922 and 1926--an excerpt from Heiser's July 1922 journey to Palestine is excerpted in Selected Quotations. And those interested in colonial India will discover a numerous reflections on Gandhi and 1920s non-violent resistance movements (also excerpted in Selected Quotations).
 
Perhaps most surprising are Heiser's detailed accounts of European travel between the 1920s and 1930s, during which he expresses some sympathy for nationalist movements. Traveling war-torn Italy, he remarked on there "appears to be unanimous agreement among natives and foreigners" that the new prime minister, Benito Mussolini, "has accomplished extraordinary results and that he is honest and genuinely patriotic" (11/19/1923). Several years later, he documents the nation's progress in developing infrastructure and improving services. He concludes his 4/29/1926 entry with an ominous justification for fascism: "Democracy gradually became so inefficient that all came to a standstill and a dictator was able to start the machinery on an effective basis."
 
Heiser traveled widely during the decade preceding World War II. In the late-1930s, he returned to Italy and decries the ubiquitous military presence, government propaganda, and oppressive taxation. And yet, he ends his entry with a section entitled "The Other Side." Heiser writes: "A whole new social order has been created. Instead of people finding fault with what government fails in, the press and government propaganda constantly drive into their ears what government is doing for the people. (In the end will this not produce more peace of mind and happiness than our democratic way of emphasizing fault-finding)" (4/25/1937).
 
On the topic of promoting public happiness, Heiser draws a similar conclusion during a contemporaneous visit to Germany. While he decries the Nazi government's "censorship, prohibitions and [intrusion into] one's private affairs," he adds: "And yet one begins to wonder whether there is not much to be said in favor of the good type of dictatorships, in promoting human happiness. In democracies people are [annoyed] to say or think little of the good things government does for them and to place main emphasis upon petty fault finding" (6/3/1937). Finally, just one year prior to the outbreak of World War II, Heiser pens perhaps his most generous account of dictatorships. That account, "Further Impressions Dictatorships," is excerpted in Selected Quotations.
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  Selected Quotations
  • "Gandhi is a hard nut to crack. He claims to believe in anything modern. He has a tremendous unorganized following. His non-cooperation is gradually failing but his boycott of foreign textiles and prohibition is making much trouble. He constantly preaches non-violence but his followers at times get out of hand. The strike at the Calcutta medical school was after all forced. Pickets prevented the students entering. Like the Irish question no one knows what to do with him but they dare not stop his talking" (7/28/1921)

  • "Zionism is exotic. No farm colony has yet been made self-sustaining although some have been in existence for 40 years. Will this infertile country permit of them sending in sufficient Jews to outnumber the Arabs? If they cannot be made self-sustaining, will the Jews of the world finally tire of supporting them?" (July 1922)

  • "They have many surface advantages and it is hard to see how democracies are eventually going to be able to compete with them. It is as carried out in Italy and Germany at present the rule of the efficient as compared with a compromise with ignorance. Why should the ignorant have a [vice] about things they do not understand? Think of thousands of people voting for Franklin Roosevelt under the impression they were voting for Theodore. Or millions voting on free silver a gold without having the slightest comprehension of the significance. Think of the thousands of unnecessary units of administration just because a few clever politicians know how to play on ignorant minds to keep themselves in useless offices. No strikes in dictatorships. Think of the tremendous saving. Dictatorships teach people to take pride in their government's achievements and thereby produce happiness instead of the unhappiness that comes from constant fault findings in a democracy. Germany in spite of being bankrupt is pulling out with the efficiency of well-run corporation" (6/7/1938)
 
 Subjects:  Africa. | American Museum of Health (New York, N.Y.) | American Red Cross. | Asia--Politics and government. | Asia--Social life and customs. | Asia. | Australia. | Castro, Fidel, 1926-2016. | Central America--Politics and government. | Central America. | China--Politics and government. | China--Social conditions. | Cold War. | Colonialisms | Communism. | Diaries. | Diplomacy. | Dysentery. | Education. | Ethnography and education | Europe--Politics and government. | Europe. | Fascism. | Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948. | Germany--History--1918-1933. | Germany--History--1933-1945. | Globalization. | Guinea worm | Hitler, Adolf, 1889-1945. | Hookworm disease. | Industrial hygiene--United States. | International Leprosy Association | International Leprosy Association | Italy--History--1914-1922. | Italy--History--1914-1945. | Johnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines), 1908-1973. | Kennedy, Edward M. (Edward Moore), 1932-2009. | Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963. | League of Nations. | Leprosy | Malaria. | Medical care--China. | Medical care--Philippines. | Medicine. | Mussolini, Benito, 1883-1945. | Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913-1994. | Philippines--Politics and government--1898-1935.Philippines--Social life and customs. | Public health. | Quarantine | Race. | Rockefeller Foundation. | Rockefeller, Nelson A. (Nelson Aldrich), 1908-1979. | Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945. | Science. | Segregation. | South America. | Travel. | Truman, Harry S., 1884-1972. | Typhoid fever. | United States--Civilization--1865-1918. | United States--Civilization--1918-1945. | United States--Civilization--1918-1945. | United States--Civilization--1945- | United States--Politics and government. | University of the Philippines | World War I. | World War II. 
 Collection:  Victor George Heiser Papers  (Mss.B.H357.p)  
  Go to the collection