Murphy, Robert Cushman, 1971

The correspondence series includes handwritten and typed letters, carbon copies, postcards and notes dating from 1916-2012.



The bulk of the material covers Watson’s sojourn in Cambridge (1951-1954), Harvard (1956-1975) and as Director (1968-1994), President (1994-2003), Chancellor (2003-2007), and Chancellor Emeritus (2007-2011) of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Watson’s career at the Copenhagen Crystallography Lab and time at California Institute of Technology are touched upon as well. The concerns addressed in the body of this series are the results and problems with experiments, fundraising and planning for meetings, and comments on manuscripts. The issue of scientific ethics is addressed through his correspondence with David Baltimore; Norton Zinder discusses recombinant DNA; and Robert Cook-Deegan deals with the Human Genome project. Many letters, such as the correspondence with his father, James, are personal in tone and discuss social activities, travel plans, and advice, during the Cambridge and Harvard years.



Correspondents include, but are not limited to, the immediate family, personal friends, university professors, biologists, geneticists, students, publishing firms, medical doctors, and businessmen.



This series also contains a fair number of letters of recommendation and award nominations for scientists such as Mark Ptashne, Nancy Doe Hopkins, Amar Klar and David Baltimore.



For departmental correspondence at Harvard please see: Personal Papers: Harvard University: Correspondence (JDW/2/5/2)



The series is arranged alphabetically by correspondent. Correspondence filed by date (1976-1990) has been placed at the end of the series, and is arranged chronologically.