by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/30/20
The Carnegie Institution continued to back eugenics long after its executives became convinced it was a worthless nonscience based on shabby data, and years after they concluded that Harry Hamilton Laughlin himself was a sham.
Laughlin and eugenics in general had become the butt of jokes and the object of reprehension as far back as 1912, when the world learned that its proponents planned to sterilize millions in America and millions more in other nations. Scientists from other disciplines ridiculed the movement as well. Despite the widespread derision, eugenics persevered as a science under siege, battling back for years, fortified by its influential patrons, the power of prejudice and the big money of Carnegie. But the Carnegie Institution's patience began to erode as early as 1922, when Laughlin became a public font of racist ideology during the Congressional immigration restriction hearings. [9]
Carnegie president John C. Merriam continued to be embarrassed by Laughlin's immigration rantings throughout the 1920s. But he tolerated them for the greater agenda of the eugenics movement. However, Laughlin struck a particular nerve in the spring of 1928, while Merriam and a U.S. government official were touring Mexican archaeology sites. During the tour, Mexican newspapers splashed a story that Merriam's Carnegie Institution was proposing that Congress severely limit immigration of Mexicans into the United States. It was Laughlin who prompted the story. [10]
Merriam immediately instructed Davenport to muzzle Laughlin. "He [Merriam] feels especially that you ought not go further," Davenport wrote Laughlin, "... helping the [House] committee on a definition of who may be acceptable as immigrants to the United States from Spanish America. The Spanish Americans are very sensitive on this matter .... It will not do for the Carnegie Institution of Washington, or its officers, to take sides in this political question." Anticipating Laughlin's predictable argument, Davenport continued, "I know you regard it properly as more than a political question and as a eugenical question -- but it is in politics now, and that means that the institution has to preserve a neutrality." [11]
Yet Laughlin did nothing to restrict his vocal activities. By the end of 1928, Merriam convened an internal committee to review the value of the Eugenics Record Office. In early February of 1929, the committee inspected the Cold Spring Harbor facility and concluded that the accumulation of index cards, trait records and family trees amounted to little more than clutter. They "are of value only to the individual compiling them," the committee wrote, and even then "in most cases they decrease in importance in direct proportion to their age." Some of the files were almost two decades old, and all of them reflected nineteenth-century record-keeping habits now obsolete. The mass of records yielded much private information about individuals and their families, but little hard knowledge on heredity. [12]
Nonetheless, with Davenport and Laughlin lobbying to continue their work, the panel rejected any "radical move, such as relegating them [the files] to dead storage." Instead, Carnegie officials decided a closer affiliation with the Eugenics Research Association [The ERA was affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (fittingly through Section F: "The Zoological Sciences") and had two seats on the Council of the AAAS.] would help the ERO achieve some approximation of genuine science. Hence the Carnegie Institution would continue to operate the ERO under Carnegie's Department of Genetics. [13]
Genetics, however, was not the emphasis at Cold Spring Harbor. Laughlin and his ERO continued their race-based political agitation unabated. Moreover, once Hitler rose to power in 1933, Laughlin forged the ERO, the ERA and Eugenical News into a triumvirate of pro-Nazi agitation. But things changed when Davenport retired in June of 1934. Laughlin lost his greatest internal sponsor, and with Davenport out of power, Carnegie officials in Washington quickly began to move against Laughlin. They pointedly questioned his race science and indeed the whole concept of eugenics in a world where the genuine science of genetics was now emerging.
Carnegie officials first focused on Eugenical News, which had become a compendium of American raceology and Nazi propaganda. Although Eugenical News was published out of the Carnegie facilities at the ERO, by a Carnegie scientist, and functioned as the official voice of Carnegie's eugenic operations, the Carnegie Institution did not legally own or control Eugenical News. It was Laughlin's enterprise. Carnegie wanted an immediate change and made this clear to Laughlin. [14]
Laughlin became very protective. He had always chosen what would and would not run in Eugenical News, and he even authored much of the text. In a September 11, 1934, letter to Davenport's replacement, Albert F. Blakeslee, Laughlin rebuffed attempts to corral Eugenical News, defensively insisting, "In this formative period of making eugenics into a science, the ideals of the Eugenics Record Office, of the Eugenics Research Association, of the International Congresses and Exhibits of Eugenics, and of the Eugenical News are identical. I feel that the position of the Eugenical News as a scientific journal is quite unique, in that eugenics is a new science, and that the trend and rate of its development, and its ultimate character, will be influenced substantially by the Eugenical News." [15]
Laughlin made clear to Carnegie officials that they simply could not control Eugenical News, because it was legally the property of the Eugenics Research Association -- and Laughlin was the secretary of the ERA. To drive home his point, a Laughlin memo defiantly included typed-in excerpts from committee reports and letters to the printer, plus sample issues going back to 1916 -- all demonstrating the ERA's legal authority over Eugenical News. "I feel that the Institution should go into the matter thoroughly," insisted Laughlin, "and make a clean-cut and definite ruling concerning the relationship of the Carnegie Institution (represented by the Eugenics Record Office) to the Eugenical News." [16]
By now, Carnegie felt it was again time to formally revisit the worth of Laughlin and eugenics. A new advisory committee was assembled, spearheaded by archaeologist A.V. [Alfred Vincent] Kidder. He began assembling information on Laughlin's activities, and Laughlin was only too happy to cooperate, almost boastfully inundating Kidder with folder after folder of material. With Davenport in retirement, Laughlin undoubtedly felt he was heir to Cold Spring Harbor's throne. He sent Washington a passel of demands about revamping Cold Spring Harbor's administrative structure, renovations of its property and new budget requests for 1935. [17]
Kidder was not encouraging. He wrote back, "I think I ought to tell you that I feel quite certain that the administrative and financial changes which you advocate are extremely unlikely, in my opinion, to be carried into effect in 1935." Kidder was virtually besieged with Laughlin's written and printed submissions to support his requests for a sweeping expansion of the ERO. On November 1, 1934, Kidder acknowledged, "I am at present reviewing all the correspondence and notes in my possession relative to the whole Cold Spring Harbor situation and in the course of a few days I shall prepare a memorandum for Dr. Merriam." But within two days, Kidder conceded that he was overwhelmed. "I have read all the material you sent me with close attention," he wrote Laughlin. "I have also read all the Year Book reports of the Eugenics Record Office .... I am now trying to correlate all this information in what passes for my brain." [18]
On Sunday, June 16 and Monday, June 17, 1935, the advisory committee led by Kidder visited Cold Spring Harbor, touring both the ERO and the adjacent Carnegie Station for Experimental Evolution. Laughlin's residence, provided by the Carnegie Institution, was one of the buildings in the compound, and Mrs. Laughlin graciously prepared Sunday lunch and Monday dinner for the delegation. The men found her hospitality delightful, and Laughlin's presentations exhaustive. But after a thorough examination, the advisory committee concluded that the Eugenics Record Office was a worthless endeavor from top to bottom, yielding no real data, and that eugenics itself was not science but rather a social propaganda campaign with no discernible value to the science of either genetics or human heredity. [19]
Almost a million ERO records assembled on individuals and families were "unsatisfactory for the scientific study of human genetics," the advisory committee explained, "because so large a percentage of the questions concern ... traits, such as 'self-respect,' 'holding a grudge,' 'loyalty,' [and] 'sense of humor,' which can seldom truly be known to anyone outside an individual's close associates; and which will hardly ever be honestly recorded, even were they measurable, by an associate or by the individual concerned." [20]
While much ERO attention was devoted to meaningless personality traits, key physical traits were being recorded so sloppily by "untrained persons" and "casually interested individuals" that the advisory committee concluded this data was also "relatively worthless for genetic study." The bottom line: a million index cards, some 35,000 files, and innumerable other records merely occupied "a great amount of the small space available ... and, worst of all, they do not appear to us really to permit satisfactory use of the data." [21]
The advisory committee recommended that all genealogical and eugenic tracking activities cease, and that the cards be placed in storage until whatever bits of legitimate heredity data they contained could be properly extracted and analyzed using an IBM punch card system. A million index cards had accumulated during some two decades, but because of the project's starting date in 1910 and Laughlin's unscientific methodology, the data had never been analyzed by IBM's data processing system. This fact only solidified the advisory committee's conclusion that the Eugenics Record Office was engaged in mere biological gossip backed up by reams of worthless documents. The advisory committee doubted that the demographic muddle would "ever be of value," and added its hope that "never again ... should records be allowed to bank up to such an extent that they cannot be kept currently analyzed."[22]
The advisory committee vigorously urged that "The Eugenics Record Office should engage in no new undertaking; and that all current activities should be discontinued save for Dr. Laughlin's work in preparation of his final report upon the Race Horse investigation." Moreover, the advisory committee emphasized, "The Eugenics Record Office should devote its entire energies to pure research divorced from all forms of propaganda and the urging or sponsoring of programs for social reform or race betterment such as sterilization, birth-control, inculcation of race or national consciousness, restriction of immigration, etc. Hence it might be well for the personnel of the Office to discontinue connection with the Eugenical News." Committee members concluded, [b]"Eugenics is by generally accepted definition and understanding not a science." They insisted that any further involvement with Cold Spring Harbor be devoid of the word eugenics and instead gravitate to the word genetics. [23][/b]
Geneticist L. C. Dunn, a member of the advisory committee traveling in Europe at the time, added his opinion in a July 3, 1935, letter, openly copied to Laughlin. Dunn was part of a growing school of geneticists demanding a clean break between eugenics and genetics. "With genetics," advised Dunn, "its relations have always been close, although there have been distinct signs of cleavage in recent years, chiefly due to the feeling on the part of many geneticists that eugenical research was not always activated by purely disinterested scientific motives, but was influenced by social and political considerations tending to bring about too rapid application of incompletely proved theses. In the United States its [the eugenics movement's] relations with medicine have never been close, the applications having more often been made through sociology than through medicine, although the basic problems involved are biological and medical ones." [24]
Dunn wondered if it wasn't time to shut down Cold Spring Harbor altogether and move the operation to a university where such an operation could collaborate with other disciplines. "There would seem to me to be no peculiar advantages in the Cold Spring Harbor location." As it stood, '''Eugenics' has come to mean an effort to foster a program of social improvement rather than an effort to discover facts." In that regard, Dunn made a clear comparison to Nazi excesses. "I have just observed in Germany," he wrote, "some of the consequences of reversing the order as between program and discovery. The incomplete knowledge of today, much of it based on a theory of the state, which has been influenced by the racial, class and religious prejudices of the group in power, has been embalmed in law, and the avenues to improvement in the techniques of improving the population have been completely closed." [25]
Dunn's July 3 letter continued with even more pointed comparisons to Nazi Germany. "The genealogical record offices have become powerful agencies of the [German] state," he wrote, "and medical judgments even when possible, appear to be subservient to political purposes. Apart from the injustices in individual cases, and the loss of personal liberty, the solution of the whole eugenic problem by fiat eliminates any rational solution by free competition of ideas and evidence. Scientific progress in general seems to have a very dark future. Although much of this is due to the dictatorship, it seems to illustrate the dangers which all programs run which are not continually responsive to new knowledge, and should certainly strengthen the resolve which we generally have in the U.S. to keep all agencies which contribute to such questions as free as possible from commitment to fixed programs." [26]
Carnegie's advisory committee could not have been more clear: eugenics was a dangerous sham, the ERO was a worthless and expensive undertaking devoid of scientific value, and Laughlin was purely political. But as Hitler rose and the situation of the Jews in Europe worsened, and the plight of refugees seeking entry into the United States became ever more desperate, the Carnegie Institution elected to ignore its own findings about Cold Spring Harbor and continue its economic and political support for Laughlin and his enterprises. Shortly after Merriam reviewed the advisory committee's conclusions, the Reich passed the Nuremberg Laws in September of 1935. Those of Jewish ancestry were stripped of their civil rights. Laughlin, Eugenical News and the Cold Spring Harbor eugenics establishment propagandized that the laws were merely sound science. Eugenical News even gave senior Nazi leaders a platform to justify their decrees. The Carnegie Institution still took no action against its Cold Spring Harbor enterprise.
In 1936, the brutal Nazi concentration camps multiplied. Systematic Jewish pauperization accelerated. Jews continued fleeing Germany in terror, seeking entry anywhere. But American consulates refused them visas. In the face of the humanitarian crisis, Laughlin continued to advise the State Department and Congress to enforce stiff eugenic immigration barriers against Jews and other desperate refugees. The Carnegie Institution still took no action against its Cold Spring Harbor enterprise. [27]
In 1937, Nazi street violence escalated and Germany increasingly vowed to extend its master race to all of Europe -- and to completely cleanse the continent of Jews. Laughlin, Eugenical News and the eugenics establishment continued to agitate in support of the Reich's goals and methods, and even distributed the anti-Semitic Nazi film, Erbkrank. The Carnegie Institution still took no action against its Cold Spring Harbor enterprise. [28]One of hard propaganda Nazi films produced by the Office of Racial Policy in the National Socialist Racial and Political Office meant to warn the greater public about the dangers and costs posed by mentally ill and mentally retarded people.
"Erbkrank” [The Hereditary Defective] was directed by Herbert Gerdes. It was one of six propagandistic movies produced by the NSDAP, Reichsleitung, Rassenpolitisches Amt or the Office of Racial Policy, from 1935 to 1937 to demonize people in Nazi Germany diagnosed with mental illness and mental retardation.
The goal was to gain public support for the T4 Euthanasia Program then in the works. This film, as the others, was made with actual footage of patients in Nazi German psychiatric institutions.
Adolf Hitler reportedly liked the film so much that he encouraged the production of the full-length film "Opfer der Vergangenheit: Die Sünde wider Blut und Rasse” (English: Victims of the Past: The Sin against Blood and Race). In 1937, Erbkrank was reportedly showing in nearly all Berlin film theaters.
-- Erbkrank (1936), by Tiergartenstrasse 4 Association
In 1938, as hundreds of thousands of new refugees appeared, an emergency intergovernmental conference was convened at Evian, France. It was fruitless. Germany then decreed that all Jewish property was to be registered, a prelude to comprehensive liquidation and seizure. In November, Kristallnacht shocked the world. Nazi agitation was now spreading into every country in Europe. Austria had been absorbed into the Reich. Hitler threatened to devour other neighboring countries as well. Laughlin, Eugenical News and the eugenics establishment still applauded the Hitler campaign. By the end of 1938, however, the Carnegie Institution realized it could not delay action much longer. [29]
On January 4, 1939, newly installed Carnegie president Vannevar Bush put Laughlin on notice that while his salary for the year was assured, Bush was not sure how much funding the ERO would receive -- if any. At the same time, Jews from across Europe continued to flee the Continent, many begging to enter America because no other nation would take them. In March of 1939, the Senate Immigration Committee asked Bush if Laughlin could appear for another round of testimony to support restrictive "remedial legislation." Bush permitted Laughlin to appear, and only asked him to limit his unsupportable scientific assertions. But Laughlin was not prohibited from again promoting eugenic and racial barriers as the best basis for immigration policy. Indeed, the Carnegie president reminded him, "One has to express opinions when he appears in this sort of inquiry, and I believe that yours will be found to be a conservative and well-founded estimate of the situation facing the Committee." Bush added that he had personally reviewed Laughlin's prior testimony and felt it was "certainly well handled and valuable." [30]
After testifying, Laughlin received a postcard at the Carnegie Institution in Washington from an irate citizen in Los Angeles. "As an American descendant of Americans for over 300 years, I'd like to learn what prompted you to supply [the Senate Immigration Committee] ... with so much material straight from Hitler's original edition of Mein Kampf." [31]
At about this time, Laughlin was also permitted to testify before the Special Committee on Immigration and Naturalization of the New York State Chamber of Commerce. In May of 1939, Laughlin's report, Immigration and Conquest, was published under the imprimatur of the New York State Chamber of Commerce and "Harry H. Laughlin, Carnegie Institution of Washington." The 267-page document, filled with raceological tenets, claimed that America would soon suffer "conquest by settlement and reproduction" through an infestation of defective immigrants. As a prime illustration, Laughlin offered "The Parallel Case of the House Rat," in which he traced rodent infestation from Europe to the rats' ability "to travel in sailing ships." [32]
Laughlin then explained, in a section entitled "The Jew as an Immigrant Into the United States," that Jews were being afforded too large a quota altogether because they were being improperly considered by their nationality instead of as a distinct racial type. By Laughlin's calculations, no more than six thousand Jews per year ought to be able to enter the United States under the existing national quota system -- the system he helped organize a half-decade earlier -- but many more were coming in because they were classified as German or Russian or Polish instead of Jewish. He asked that Jews in the United States "assimilate" properly and prove their "loyalty to the American institutions" was "greater than their loyalty to Jews scattered through other nations." Immigration and Conquest's precepts were in many ways identical to Nazi principles. Laughlin and the ERO proudly sent a copy to Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, as well as to other leading Nazis, including Verschuer, Lenz, Ploetz and even Rudin at a special address care of a university in occupied Czechoslovakia. [33]
In late 1938, the Carnegie Institution finally disengaged from Eugenical News. The publication became a quarterly completely under the aegis of the American Eugenics Society, published out of AES offices in Manhattan, with a new editorial committee that did not include Laughlin or any other Carnegie scientist. The first issue of the reorganized publication was circulated in March of 1939. Shortly thereafter, the Carnegie Institution formalized Laughlin's retirement, effective at the end of the year. On September 1, 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland, igniting World War II. Highly publicized atrocities against Polish Jews began at once, shocking the world.[/b] Efforts by Laughlin in the final months of 1939 to find a new sponsor for the ERO were unsuccessful. On December 31, 1939, Laughlin officially retired. The Eugenics Record Office was permanently closed the same day. [34]
-- War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race, by Edwin Black
The Carnegie Institution of Washington (the organization's legal name), known also for public purposes as the Carnegie Institution for Science (CIS), is an organization in the United States established to fund and perform scientific research. The institution is headquartered in Washington, D.C.
Name
More than 20 organizations (see The Carnegie Confusion) around the world that were established through the philanthropy of Andrew Carnegie now feature his surname and perform work involving topics as diverse as art, education, international affairs, world peace, and scientific research. The organizations are independent entities and are related by name only.
In 2007, the institution adopted the public name "Carnegie Institution for Science" to distinguish itself better from other organizations established by and named for Andrew Carnegie. The institution remains officially and legally the Carnegie Institution of Washington, but now has a public identity that describes its work more accurately.
History
"It is proposed to found in the city of Washington, an institution which...shall in the broadest and most liberal manner encourage investigation, research, and discovery [and] show the application of knowledge to the improvement of mankind..." — Andrew Carnegie, January 28, 1902
Andrew Carnegie
Beginning during 1895, Andrew Carnegie contributed his vast fortune toward the establishment of 22 organizations that presently feature his surname and perform work in such topics as art, education, international affairs, peace, and scientific research.
In 1901, Andrew Carnegie retired from business to begin his career in philanthropy. Among his new enterprises, he considered establishing a national university in Washington, D.C., similar to the great centers of learning in Europe. Because he was concerned that a new university could weaken existing universities, he opted for an independent research organization that would increase basic scientific knowledge.[1]
Carnegie communicated with President Theodore Roosevelt and declared his readiness to endow the new institution with $10 million. He added $2 million more to the endowment in 1907, and another $10 million in 1911. By some estimates, the value of his endowment in current terms was $500 million.[2]
As ex officio members of the first board of trustees, Carnegie chose the President of the United States, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and the president of the National Academy of Sciences. In all, he selected 27 men for the institution's original board. Their first meeting was held in the office of the Secretary of State on January 29, 1902, and Daniel Coit Gilman, who had been president of Johns Hopkins University, was elected president. The institution was incorporated by the U.S. Congress in 1903.
Early grants
Initially, the president and trustees devoted much of the institution's budget to individual grants for various topics, including astronomy, anthropology, literature, economics, history and mathematics. Among the researchers who received individual grants were American physicist Albert A. Michelson, paleontologist Oliver Perry Hay, botanist Janet Russell Perkins, Thomas Hunt Morgan and his "fly group", geologist Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin, historian of science George Sarton, rocket pioneer Robert H. Goddard and botanist Luther Burbank.[3]
The institution also funded archaeological research by Sylvanus Morley at Chichen Itza.[4]
Research of special note
As directed by Robert Woodward, who became president in 1904, the board changed its practice, deciding to provide major funding to departments of research rather than to individuals. This allowed them to concentrate on fewer topics and fund groups of researchers in related areas over many years. Starting in 1907 the Institution maintained the Tortugas Laboratory on Garden Key, Florida (today Fort Jefferson National Monument), under the direction of Alfred G. Mayer.[5]
Since the beginning, the Carnegie Institution has often made discoveries but left the development to others. This philosophy has resulted in unexpected results, including the development of hybrid corn, radar, the technology that led to Pyrex ® glass, and novel techniques to control genes known as RNA interference. Some of Carnegie's researchers from the early and middle years of the 20th century are well known:
Edwin Hubble, who revolutionized astronomy with his discovery that the universe is expanding and that there are galaxies other than our own Milky Way
Charles Richter, who created the earthquake measurement scale;
Barbara McClintock, who won the Nobel Prize for her early work on patterns of genetic inheritance;
Alfred Hershey, who won the Nobel Prize for determining that DNA, not protein, harbors the genetic recipe for life;
Vera Rubin, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Science for her work confirming the existence of dark matter in the universe; and
Andrew Fire, who with colleagues elsewhere researched RNA interference, for which he shared a Nobel Prize in 2006.
World War II
Vannevar Bush.
When the United States joined World War II, Vannevar Bush was president of the Carnegie Institution. Several months before, on June 12, 1940, Bush had been instrumental in persuading President Franklin Roosevelt to create the National Defense Research Committee (later superseded by the Office of Scientific Research and Development) to mobilize and coordinate the nation's scientific war effort. Bush quickly housed the new agency in the Carnegie Institution's administrative headquarters at 16th and P Streets, NW, in Washington, DC, converting its great rotunda and auditorium into office cubicles. From this location, Bush supervised, among many other projects, the Manhattan Project. Further, Carnegie scientists cooperated with the development of the proximity fuze and mass production of penicillin.[6]
Present
As of June 30, 2018, the Institution's endowment was valued at $996 million. Expenses for scientific programs and administration was $96.6 million.[7]
As of July 2, 2018, Dr. Eric D. Isaacs [1] is president of the institution.
Research
Carnegie scientists continue to be involved with scientific discovery. Composed of six scientific departments on the East and West Coasts, the Carnegie Institution for Science is involved presently with six main topics:
1) Astronomy at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (Washington, D.C.) and the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington (Pasadena, CA and Las Campanas, Chile);
2) Earth and planetary science also at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism and the Geophysical Laboratory (Washington, D.C.);
3) Global Ecology at the Department of Global Ecology (Stanford, CA);
4) Genetics and developmental biology at the Department of Embryology (Baltimore, MD);
5) Matter at extreme states also at the Geophysical Laboratory; and
6) Plant science at the Department of Plant Biology (Stanford, CA).
Carnegie investigators are major researchers of astronomy, Earth and planetary science, global ecology, genetics and developmental biology, matter at extreme states, and plant science. The institution has six research departments: the Geophysical Laboratory and the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, both located in Washington, D.C.; The Observatories, in Pasadena, California, and Chile; the Department of Plant Biology and the Department of Global Ecology, in Stanford, California; and the Department of Embryology, in Baltimore, Maryland.
The Carnegie Institution's Six Research Departments:
Department of Embryology, Baltimore, Maryland
The Department of Embryology was founded during 1913 in affiliation with the department of anatomy at The Johns Hopkins University. It has pursued innovative experimental studies directed toward a fundamental description of human development. In an attempt to foster a closer relationship with the Johns Hopkins Department of Biology, in 1960, the Department relocated from the medical school to the Hopkins Homewood campus at 115 West University Parkway. This initiated a new research emphasis on understanding fundamental developmental mechanisms at the cellular and molecular level. A major focus of the research has been the role played by genes during embryogenesis. The research of the department has developed widely used experimental methods. The department has funded a vital postdoctoral program that has allowed it to train generations of biologists. A shared graduate program with the Johns Hopkins Department of Biology has helped enhance the work of the department. Embryology Department faculty have been appointed Investigators of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1987.
The Maxine F. Singer research building is a facility that has housed the department since 2005. It is located on the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus at 3520 San Martin Drive. The Department of Embryology is recognized as among the top research centers in cellular, developmental and genetic biology. Three researchers were awarded Nobel Prizes for work done while at the department: Alfred Hershey, Barbara McClintock, and Andrew Fire.
In addition to the Department of Embryology, BioEYES is located at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA; Monash University in Melbourne, Australia; the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, UT; and the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, IN."
Until the 1960s the department's emphasis was human embryo development. Since then the researchers have addressed fundamental questions in animal development and genetics at the cellular and molecular levels. Some researchers investigate the genetic programming behind cellular processes as cells develop, while others explore the genes that control growth and obesity, stimulate stem cells to become specialized body parts, and perform many other functions.
Geophysical Laboratory, Washington, D.C.
Researchers at the Geophysical Laboratory (GL), founded in 1905, examine the physics and chemistry of Earth's deep interior. The laboratory is world-renowned for petrology—the study of rocks. It is known also for high-pressure and high-temperature physics, having made significant contributions to both Earth and material sciences.[citation needed] The GL, with the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism co-located on the same campus, is additionally a member of the NASA Astrobiology Institute—an interdisciplinary effort to investigate how life evolved on this planet and determine its potential for existing elsewhere. Among their many projects is one dedicated to examining how common rocks found at high-pressure, high-temperature hydrothermal vents at the ocean bottom may have provided the catalyst for life on this planet.
Research at the Geophysical Laboratory is multidisciplinary and encompasses research from theoretical physics to molecular biology. When the Laboratory was first established, its mission was to understand the composition and structure of the Earth as it was known at the time, including the processes that control them. This included developing an understanding of the underlying physics and chemistry as well as the tools necessary for research. During the history of the Laboratory, this mission has extended to include the entire range of conditions since the Earth's formation. Most recently this study has expanded to cover other planets, both within our own solar system and in other star systems.
Presently, as through its history, the Laboratory develops instruments and procedures for examining materials across a wide range of temperatures and pressures — everything from near absolute zero to hotter than the sun and from ambient pressure to millions of atmospheres. The Laboratory uses diamond-anvil cells coupled with first-principles theory as research tools. It also develops scientific instrumentation and high-pressure technology used at the national x-ray and neutron facilities that it manages. This work addresses major problems in mineralogy, materials science, chemistry, and condensed-matter physics.
Laboratory scientists examine meteorites and comets to follow the evolution of simple to complex molecules in the solar system. They are gaining insights into the origin of life by examining the conditions present in the early Earth. Studying unique ecologies to develop detailed models of their biochemistry helps develop protocols and instrumentation that could assist the search for life on other planets. The protocols and methodologies are tested in regions of the Earth that serve as analogs for conditions found on other planets.
As do all Carnegie departments, the Laboratory funds outstanding young scholars through a strong program of education and training at the pre-doctoral and post-doctoral levels.
Department of Global Ecology, Stanford, California
Established in 2002, Global Ecology is the newest Carnegie department in more than 80 years. Using innovative methods, these researchers are researching the complicated interactions of Earth's land, atmosphere, and oceans to understand how global systems operate. With a wide range of instruments—from satellites to the instruments of molecular biology—these scientists explore issues such as the global carbon cycle, the role of land and oceanic ecosystems in regulating climate, the interaction of biological diversity with ecosystem function, and much more. These ecologists also play an active role in the public arena, from giving congressional testimony to promoting satellite imagery for the discovery of environmental "hotspots". In 2007, former Department Director Chris Field was among the 25 scientists who accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the IPCC, which shared the award with former Vice President Al Gore.[8]
Department of Plant Biology, Stanford, California
Arabidopsis thaliana
The Department of Plant Biology began as a desert laboratory in 1903 to study plants in their natural habitats. Over time the research evolved to the study of photosynthesis. Presently, using molecular genetics and related methods, these biologists study the genes responsible for plant responses to light and the genetic controls over various growth and developmental processes including those that enable plants to survive disease and environmental stress. Additionally, the department is a developer of bioinformatics. It developed an online-integrated database, The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR), that supplies all aspects of biological information on the most widely used model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana. The department uses advanced genetic and genomic methods to study the biochemical and physiological basis of the regulation of photosynthesis and has pioneered methods that use genetic sequencing to systematically characterize unstudied genes. It investigates the mechanisms that plants use to sense and respond to light including the blue light receptors that drive phototropism, the direction of growth towards light, and chloroplast positioning as well as the molecular mechanisms that shape the plant body, especially the production and shape of leaves. It also examines life in extreme environments by studying communities of photosynthetic microbes that live in hot springs.[9]
Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Washington, D.C.
The Department of Terrestrial Magnetism was founded in 1904 to map the geomagnetic field of the Earth. A crucial part of this mission included the use of two ships. The Galilee (ship) was chartered in 1905, but when it proved unsuitable for performing magnetic observations, a nonmagnetic ship was specially commissioned. The Carnegie (ship) was built in 1909 and completed seven cruises to measure the Earth's magnetic field before it suffered an explosion and burned.[10] Its captain was J. P. Ault. Over the years the research emphasis of the department changed, but the historic goal—to understand the Earth and its place in the universe—has remained the same. Presently the department is home to an interdisciplinary team of astronomers and astrophysicists, geophysicists and geochemists, cosmochemists and planetary scientists. These Carnegie researchers are discovering planets outside the Solar System, determining the age and structure of the universe, and studying the causes of earthquakes and volcanoes. With colleagues from the Geophysical Laboratory, these investigators are also helping to define the new and exciting field of astrobiology. The department funds a number of interdisciplinary research studies. Astronomy and Astrophysics at DTM uses pioneering detection methods to discover and understand planets outside the Solar system. By observing and modeling other planetary systems, researchers are able to apply those implications to our own system. The Geophysics group at DTM studies earthquakes and volcanoes and the Earth's structures and processes that produce them. Cosmochemists study the origins of the Solar system, the early evolution of meteorites and the nature of the impact process on Earth. Astrobiological research focuses on life's origins and chemical and physical evolution from the interstellar medium through planetary formation.[11]
The Observatories, Pasadena, California, and Las Campanas, Chile
Giant Magellan Telescope, artist's conception.
The Observatories were founded in 1904 as the Mount Wilson Observatory, which transformed our notion of the cosmos with the discoveries by Edwin Hubble that the universe is much larger than had been thought and that it is expanding. Carnegie astronomers presently study the cosmos. Unlike most researchers of their topic, they design and build their own instruments. They are tracing the evolution of the universe from the spark of the Big Bang through star and galaxy formation, exploring the structure of the universe, and probing the mysteries of dark matter, dark energy, and the ever-accelerating rate at which the universe is expanding. Carnegie astronomers currently operate from the Las Campanas Observatory, which was established in 1969. Located high in Chile's Atacama Desert, it affords excellent astronomical observing conditions. As Los Angeles's light encroached more and more on Mount Wilson, day-to-day operations there were transferred to the Mount Wilson Institute in 1986. The newest additions at Las Campanas, twin 6.5-meter reflectors, are remarkable members of the latest generation of giant telescopes.[12] The Carnegie Institution is currently partnered with several other organizations in constructing the Giant Magellan Telescope.
CASE: Carnegie Academy for Science Education and First Light
In 1989, Maxine Singer, president of Carnegie at that time, founded First Light, a free Saturday science program for middle school students from D.C. public, charter, private, and parochial schools. The program teaches hands-on science, such as constructing and programming robots, investigating pond ecology, and studying the Solar System and telescope building. First Light marked the beginning of CASE, the Carnegie Academy for Science Education. Since 1994 CASE has also offered professional development for D.C. teachers in science, mathematics, and technology.
Administration
Administrative headquarters of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC
The Carnegie Institution's administrative offices are located at 1530 P St., NW, Washington, D.C., at the corner of 16th and P Streets. The building houses the offices of the president, administration and finance, publications, and advancement.
Funding for eugenics
Main article: Eugenics in the United States
In 1920 the Eugenics Record Office, founded by Charles Davenport in 1910 in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, was merged with the Station for Experimental Evolution to become the Carnegie Institution's Department of Genetics. The Institution funded that laboratory until 1939; it employed such anthropologists as Morris Steggerda, who collaborated closely with Davenport. The Carnegie Institution ceased its support of eugenics research and closed the department in 1944. The department's records were retained in a university library. The Carnegie Institution continues its funding for legitimate genetic research. Among its notable staff members of that topic are Nobel laureates Andrew Fire, Alfred Hershey, and Barbara McClintock.
Presidents
• Daniel Coit Gilman (1902–1904)
• Robert S. Woodward (1904–1920)
• John C. Merriam (1921–1938)
• Vannevar Bush (1939–1955)
• Caryl P. Haskins (1956–1971)
• Philip Abelson (1971–1978)
• James D. Ebert (1978–1987)
• Edward E. David, Jr. (Acting President, 1987–1988)
• Maxine F. Singer (1989–2002)
• Michael E. Gellert (Acting President, Jan. – April 2003)
• Richard A. Meserve (April 2003 – September 2014)
• Matthew P. Scott (September 1, 2014 – December 31, 2017)
• John Mulchaey and Yixian Zheng (Interim Co-Presidents January 1, 2018 – June 30, 2018)
• Eric D. Isaacs (July 2, 2018 – present)
References
1. Ris, Ethan W. (2016-12-20). "The Education of Andrew Carnegie: Strategic Philanthropy in American Higher Education, 1880–1919". The Journal of Higher Education. 0 (3): 401–429. doi:10.1080/00221546.2016.1257308. ISSN 0022-1546.
2. "Measuring Worth - Relative Worth Comparators and Data Sets". http://www.measuringworth.com. Archived from the original on 2016-08-18.
3. Trefil, James; Margaret Hindle Hazen; Timothy Ferris. Good Seeing. Joseph Henry Press, 2002, pp. 29-31.
4. Trefil, James; Margaret Hindle Hazen; Timothy Ferris. Good Seeing. Joseph Henry Press, 2002, pp. 201-205.
5. Federal Writers' Project (1939), Florida. A Guide to the Southernmost State, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 206
6. Trefil, James; Margaret Hindle Hazen; Timothy Ferris. Good Seeing. Joseph Henry Press, 2002, pp. 77-79.
7. "Archived copy". Retrieved 2019-08-28.
8. "Chris Field: A Man for All Climates". Archived from the original on 2016-06-11.
9. "Light to Life". dpb.carnegiescience.edu. Archived from the original on 2016-06-11.
10. Trefil, James; Margaret Hindle Hazen; Timothy Ferris. Good Seeing. Joseph Henry Press, 2002, pp. 133-136.
11. "Research - DTM". dtm.carnegiescience.edu. Archived from the original on 2016-06-12.
12. "History". The Carnegie Observatories. Archived from the original on 2016-07-26.
External links
• Official website
• Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) No. DC-52-A, "Carnegie Institute of Washington, Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Standardizing Magnetic Observatory"
• HAER No. DC-52-B, "Carnegie Institute of Washington, Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Brass Foundry"
• HAER No. DC-52-C, "Carnegie Institute of Washington, Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Atomic Physics Observatory"