Norton Zinder Collection

Collection

Identifier: NDZ

Staff Only

Scope and Content

The Norton Zinder Collection is composed of 65 boxes of material accrued by Zinder as a student (Columbia University, University of Wisconsin), Professor (Rockefeller University), and as a pioneering researcher in the field of molecular biology. The collection includes course notebooks, lecture notes and teaching files, scientific papers, correspondence, photographs, memorabilia, clippings, and material related to his fifty-year career at Rockefeller University.

Series I: The Biographical series (1 box) includes material relating to the personal life of Norton Zinder, including correspondence with his family, photographs, CV, reflections on his career, and autograph requests.

Series II: The University of Wisconsin-Madison series (2 boxes) includes Zinder's thesis drafts, notes, and papers.

Series III: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory series (6 boxes) includes;

Subseries 1. General: Zinder cabin dedication, photographs, and promotional material.

Subseries 2. Board of Trustees: minutes, notes, and correspondence.

Subseries 3. Banbury Center: board minutes and correspondence.

Series IV: The Rockefeller University series includes;

Subseries 1. Administrative: administrative correspondence, faculty meetings, staff and student policies, and recommendations.

Subseries 2. Professional Activities: correspondence with the National Academy of Science (NAS), National Research Council, US Army, the Human Genome Project; US Congressional testimony; New York State legislature testimony, corporate consultancy and international scientific organizations.

Series V: Lab Notebooks: (14 boxes) data from the Zinder labs originally in 3 ring black binders with very few dates noted. This series includes Zinder's lab notebooks as well as notebooks of his students.

Series VI: Reprints: (7 boxes) organized into two subseries. Reprints by Zinder are organized chronologically and reprints by others are organized alphabetically.

Dates

Creation: 1934-2010

Creator

Zinder, Norton D. (Person)

Language of Materials

English

Access Restrictions

Some restrictions apply, see Archivist for details. Access is given only by appointment, 8:00a.m. to 4:45p.m. Monday through Friday.

Use Restriction

Archival materials must remain in the archival reading area. Item duplication is to be done by archivists. Fees are applied to copies made. Digital photography is permitted by users. Due to the very fragile nature of some materials in this collection, some are available through photocopies; others must be used under the supervision of an archivist.

Biography

Norton Zinder, a New Yorker, received his A.B. degree from Columbia University in 1947 and went on to the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he received a Ph. D. in 1952. As a graduate student, he discovered bacterial transduction, showing that Bacteriophage can carry genetic material from a donor to recipient bacteria. He returned to New York in 1952 to The Rockefeller University (then known as The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research) as an Associate Professor in 1956, Associate Professor in 1958 and Professor in 1964, and later appointed Dean of Graduate and Post Graduate studies. In 1977 he was designated the John D. Rockefeller Professor of Molecular Genetics. During these Rockefeller years, he made significant findings regarding small RNA and DNA infected with bacteriophage and continued his molecular biology research until his retirement from Rockefeller University in 1989. Notwithstanding his retirement as Professor at Rockefeller, Zinder remained, very active with speaking engagements, demilitarization issues with National Research Council and Genome policies and recommendations until 2000.

Zinder served in the national policy arenas as a member of the Board of Army Science and Technology and as the chair of the NIH committee to review the National Cancer Plan as well as the advisory committee of the Human Genome Project. Elected to the National Academy of Science in 1969, he served on committees addressing Recombinant DNA, overseeing the disposal of US chemical weapon stockpiles and chemical warfare defense. He was a member of the Visiting Committees at Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Duke Universities. Zinder also served on the Board of Trustees of Cold Spring Harbor Lab from 1967 to 1986 (including as Secretary to the Board). Dr. Zinder died in New York on February 3, 2012 at the age of 83.

Extent

66 Boxes

Additional Description

Abstract

The Norton Zinder Collection documents the academic life and career of Norton Zinder a geneticist and microbiologist, Professor Emeritus at the Rockefeller University, and trustee of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Zinder was an active participant in five dynamic decades of biological science, emerging from the confines of the laboratory to national and international arenas addressing political and moral issues such as recombinant DNA research guidelines, the demilitarization of chemical weapons, abortion, scientific misconduct, and the Human Genome Project. The collection includes photographs, correspondence, manuscripts, laboratory notebooks, administrative records, memorabilia, reprints and various other records.

Arrangement Note

Biographical, 1948-2010
University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1949-1953
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1966-2003
Rockefeller University, 1934-2003
Lab notebooks, 1949-2001
Reprints, 1934-1998

The reprint series was the only part of the collection that came organizationally intact. All other series have been arranged by the processing archivist.

Provenance

The collection was donated by Norton Zinder. It was received in June 2007 and processed at CSHL Library and Archives in August-January 2012 (Accession # 2012-014) and updated in 2025.