Abstract
Around the turn of the twentieth century, microbiologists in Western Europe and North America began to organize centralized collections of microbial cultures. Collectors published lists of the strains they cultured, offering to send duplicates to colleagues near and far. This essay explores the history of microbial culture collections through two cases: Johanna Westerdijk’s collection of phytopathogenic fungi in the Netherlands and Ernst Georg Pringsheim’s collection of single-celled algae at the German University in Prague. Historians of science have tended to look at twentieth-century biological specimen collections as either repositories of communal research materials or storehouses of economically important biological variation. An examination of Westerdijk’s and Pringsheim’s collections illustrates how collectors, researchers, and patrons ascribed different kinds of value to collections featuring distinctive microbial life forms. This essay argues that characteristics of cultivated microorganisms, such as a fungus’s propensity to infect crops or an alga’s amenability to experimentation, shaped the trajectories of Westerdijk’s and Pringsheim’s collections as these collectors developed relationships with colleagues and patrons. Letters between Westerdijk and Pringsheim open a window onto divergences in their approaches to collecting cultures, while also shedding light on the aspirational internationality of the collections that resulted.
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Pringsheim to the Präsidium der internationalen Botanikergesellschaft (handwritten draft), 22 April 1935, Cod. Ms. 605, Nachlass Ernst Georg Pringsheim, Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen (hereafter EGP). All translations are my own, unless otherwise noted.
Pringsheim to Westerdijk (handwritten draft), 22 April 1935, Cod. Ms. 605, EGP.
Pringsheim to Westerdijk (handwritten draft), 22 April 1935, Cod. Ms. 605, EGP.
Went to Westerdijk, 30 April 1912, Archives of the WCS. Cited and translated in Faasse (2008, p. 82).
Faculteit Wis- en Natuurkunde to College van Curatoren, 7 February 1929, inv. 208, 1020, Gemeente-archief van Amsterdam. Cited and translated in Faasse (2008, p. 122).
Utrechts Archief, item 59—College van Curatoren, Universiteit van Utrecht, inv. 2884 ‘Zuivering Westerdijk.’ Cited and translated in Faasse (2008, pp. 145–146).
World Health Organization to Westerdijk, 27 June 1950, Archives of the WCS. Cited in Faasse (2008, p. 157).
Fitting to Pringsheim, 12 December 1926, Cod. Ms. 143, EGP.
Fitting to Pringsheim, 12 December 1926, Cod. Ms. 143, EGP.
Staatsminister to Pringsheim, 18 March 1927, Folder 16481—Pringsheim, Ernst Georg, R73—Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Bundesarchiv Lichterfelde (hereafter BA).
Report—“Die Tätigkeit der Prager Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Pflanzenernährung im Jahre 1929,” Folder 16481—Pringsheim, Ernst Georg, R73—Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, BA.
Pringsheim to Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft, 6 March 1930, Folder 16481—Pringsheim, Ernst Georg, R73—Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, BA.
Pringsheim to Benecke, 10 August 1933, Cod. Ms. 33, EGP.
Pringsheim to Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft, January 1933, Folder 13726—Pringsheim, Ernst Georg, R73—Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, BA.
Pringsheim to Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft, 2 May 1935, Folder 13726—Pringsheim, Ernst Georg, R73—Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, BA.
Pringsheim to Bold, 13 September 1941, Cod. Ms. 48, EGP.
Mitteilung betr. Prof Pringsheim. Abschrift, 16 May 1935, Folder 13726—Pringsheim, Ernst Georg, R73—Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, BA.
Barber to Pringsheim, 11 June 1935, Cod. Ms. 18, EGP.
Pringsheim to Barber, 24 June 1935, Cod. Ms. 18, EGP.
Westerdijk to Pringsheim, 10 May 1935, Cod. Ms. 605, EGP.
Pringsheim to Westerdijk, 28 July 1935, Cod. Ms. 605, EGP.
Vischer to Pringsheim, 10 August 1935, Cod. Ms. 579, EGP.
Vischer to the Mitglieder der Comités zur Weiterzüchtung von Algenkulturen, 27 September 1935, Cod. Ms. 579, EGP.
Not immune from the pressures to acquire sufficient funding, the Lausanne collection apparently fizzled out of existence in the 1960s (Porter 1976, pp. 65–66).
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Acknowledgements
I thank Brad Bolman, Angela Creager, Tara Suri, Patricia Faase, Jacalyn Duffin, Jocelyn Holland, Jonathan Koch, members of the HSS works-in-progress group at Caltech, two anonymous reviewers, and the editors of this journal for invaluable comments on previous drafts of this paper. I express my gratitude to Maike Lorenz, curator of the Culture Collection of Algae at Göttingen University, and Lesley Robertson, curator of the Delft School of Microbiology Archive, for assistance locating primary sources and images.
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Kollmer, C.A. International Culture Collections and the Value of Microbial Life: Johanna Westerdijk’s Fungi and Ernst Georg Pringsheim’s Algae. J Hist Biol 55, 59–87 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-022-09669-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-022-09669-6