Submitted by Carolyn MERCHANT on
In 1924, Hugo Iltis (1882-1952) published (in German) what is still the definitive biography of Gregor Mendel, titled "The Life of Mendel." Iltis, like Mendel, was born and lived in in Brno in the Czech Republic and used Mendel's papers and letters to write his biography. The book was translated into English in 1932. Iltis then used Mendelian genetics to criticize Nazi race theories, writing 3 highly critical essays in the 1930s. The Nazi's obtained the essays and threatened to string him up in the public square when they reached Brno. With the help of Albert Einstein and anthropologist Franz Boas, Iltis was offered a position at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, VA. He caught the last plane out of Prague, Czechoslovakia, in December 1938 and six weeks later his family followed on a dark train through Germany. They all met up in Cherbourg, France, and sailed to America. Later, after getting established at Mary Washington College, Iltis began writing a second edition of his book based on new research and understandings of genetics that were emerging in the twentieth century.
Iltis's typed manuscript titled, Mendelism and Our Time (805 pages), exists in the Special Collections library of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The manuscript has been scanned and retyped. The goal of this SPUR project is to prepare this new manuscript for publication. The new typescript must be compared to the scans of the original typescript and corrections made. Notes must be clarified and updated. A new preface that compares what was known at the time Hugo Iltis passed away in 1952 and today must be prepared.
An undergraduate will assist with understanding the intellectual content of the manuscript, editing the new typescript by comparing it to the scans of the original typescript, assisting in preparing and updating footnotes and bibliography, and in evaluating the content of the manuscript with respect to today's understanding of genetics. S/he will receive full acknowledgment in the book when it is published.
An undergraduate student should be interested in (but does not need to be an expert in) the history of Gregor Mendel, his life, and the history and current state of the field of genetics. S/he should have editorial experience and be interested in preparing manuscripts for publication.