STANFORD UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER

DEPARTMENT OF GENETICS

A November 8, 1976
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Dear Friend,

It has fallen on me, together with George Beadle, to take on the task
and privilege of preparing a biographical memoir of Edward L. Tatum for the
series published by the National Academy of Sciences. £ am writing this lecter
to a number of our mutual friends with the aim of (1) collecting information
and impressions that might be useful to us in filling out an acurate picture
of Ed and of his life for the memoir, and (2) to assemble a more comprehensive
archives that might be kept for the historical record and for more detailed
inquiry in the future.

 

Particularly with respect to the latter, I have been astonished how quickly
such materials disappear. For example, it has been impossible to get more than
the most fragmentary records of the history of biological sciences at Stanford

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We wokld therefore be most grateful to you either for personal statements

or recollections about Edward Tatum in whatever roles you knew him. If there is
any material that you are willing to have deposited in the archive but would
prefer not be quoted or attributed at the present time, please do not hesitate
to indicate that.

Records and correspondence for the period before he joined Rockefeller
University in 1957 would be particularly deeply appreciated. I would also
welcome suggestions, even if they are possibly redundant, about other people
to contact in this pursuit. If you have any information about repositories
of documentary material about Ed,other than the collection at the Rockefeller
University Library, I would certainly like to hear about it.

Ed told me that he had essentially discarded all of his own papers prior
to 1957, so that if any of you have correspondence predating that, I would be
glad to have it for the archives even if it covers material that may appear to
be self-evident from the published literature.

I hope you will also take the opportunity to record your own personal
recollections and impressions of Ed in whatever form and length you see fit.

If you have any questions about this enterprise, I will of course also be
glad to hear from you by phone (at 415-497-5801).

Sincerely yours,

Joshua Lederberg

Professor of Genetics
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DEPARTMENT OF GENETICS, STANFORD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL GF MEDICINE, STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305 * (415) 497-3052