Sample Reprints Scanned as Digital Objects

The Davenport and Demerec Reprint Collection consists of reprints of scientific papers spanning the years ca. 1868-ca. 1960 organized as two sub-collections (Davenport and Demerec) sorted alphabetically by the last name of the first author of the reprints. In its entirety, this collection contains 293 linear feet of reprints, totaling 88,400 items. 56 linear feet of materials, totaling 15,237 items, have previously been selected by science historians as of preeminent value to scholars and educators, and were cataloged into archival database software Digitool. These reprints were never properly stored and need to be rehoused. Therefore, during the course of the project, the 15,237 reprints will be moved to acid-free folders. Of these 15,237 reprints, 1,243 come from foreign publishers and due to US copyright law are excluded from these digitization efforts, leaving 13,994 reprints (52 linear feet) to be digitized. The specific reprints selected from these collections for digitization are important for their relevance to the growth of genetics as a science – and the American eugenics movement in particular, their illustration of the impact of science on American society, and what they show of the influence of American science in the late 19th and early 20th century of international biological study.