George L. Streeter Collection

Biography

George L. Streeter was born in Johnstown, New York. He received his A.B. from Union College in 1895 and his A.M. and M.D. degrees from Columbia University in 1899. He taught anatomy at the John Hopkins University School of Medicine from 1903 until 1906 and for seven years at the University of Michigan. He returned to Baltimore in 1914 to join the department of embryology of the Carnegie Institution of Washington under his former department chair at Johns Hopkins, Franklin P. Mall. In 1918, after Mall’s death, Streeter was appointed director. Streeter’s research resulted in over 100 scientific papers covering topics such as the development of the nervous system in human embryos, early stages of the human embryo, the vascular supply to the embryonic brain, comparative embryology, and pathology of the fetus.

Scope and Content

The George L. Streeter Collection consists primarily of family correspondence and travel scrapbooks. The family letters begin when George Streeter was an undergraduate in 1895, and extend through to Streeter’s retirement in 1940. The letters, many of them to his wife Julia Allen Streeter, are filled with news, anecdotes, and numerous pen & ink sketches. Copies of the letters have been compiled and organized into a binder with annotations by Streeter. The letters offer a glimpse of his career in medicine and investigative embryology. The collection also contains travel scrapbooks and journals. The first book, from 1902-03, is filled primarily with postcards, printed ephemera, and several photographs of Streeter and others. The travel scrapbook and diary of 1928 document a trip through Ireland and the United Kingdom, where he traveled to receive an honorary degree from the University of Dublin, Trinity College. The collection also contains reprints.

Catalog Record

Additional Links

Records of the Carnegie Institution of Washington Department of Embryology

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