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References
William King Gregory to Samuel Wendell Williston, April 15, 1918, William King Gregory Papers, Box 19, American Museum of Natural History.
Georges Cuvier, Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles des quadrupèdes où l'on rétablit les caractères de plusieurs espèces d'animaux que les révolutions du globe paroissent avoir détruits, 4 vols. (Paris: Deterville, 1812). Vladimir Kovalevsky's leading works include: “On the Osteology of the Hyopotamidae,” Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London, 163 (1873), 19–94; and “Monographie der Gattung Anthracotherium Cuv. und Versuch einer naturlichen Classification der fossilen Hufthiere,” Palaeograph, 3 (1873), 131–210; 4 (1874), 211–290; 5 (1874), 291–346. Louis Dollo, “Sur la phylogénie des dipneustes,” in Louis Dollo's Papers on Paleontology and Evolution, ed. Stephen Jay Gould (New York: Arno Press, 1980), pp. 79–115; and Louis Dollo, “La paléontologie éthologique,” Bull. Soc. Belge Géol. Paléont. Hydrogéol., 23 (1909), 377–421.
Martin J. S. Rudwick, The Meaning of Fossils, Episodes in the History of Palaeontology, 2nd ed. (New York: Science History Publications, 1976), pp. 262, 264. On the changes in late nineteenth-century biology see Garland E. Allen, Life Science in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 1–39; and the papers on American morphology in J. Hist. Biol, 14 (1981), 83–191.
On Osborn's influence see William King Gregory, “Henry Fairfield Osborn,” Biog. Mem. Nat. Acad. Sci., 19 (1938), 53–119; and Ronald Rainger, “Vertebrate Paleontology as Biology: Henry Fairfield Osborn and the American Museum of Natural History,” in The American Development of Biology, ed. Ronald Rainger, Keith R. Benson, and Jane Maienschein (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), pp. 219–256.
On Osborn and the powerful networks he controlled see Douglas Sloan, “Science in New York City, 1867–1907,” Isis, 71 (1980), 35–76.
Cope did not systematically study animal habits and functions; nevertheless, he claimed that the responses of animals to their environment produced organic change and thus pointed out the need to understand animal habits and functions in relationship to adaptation and evolution. Among his numerous papers the most relevant are: Edward Drinker Cope, “The Laws of Organic Development,” Amer. Nat., 5 (1871), 593–605; and several essays in The Origin of the Fittest, ed. Edward Drinker Cope (New York: D. Appleton, 1887).
Henry Fairfield Osborn, “Rise of the Mammalia in North America,” Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 42 (1894), 191.
Henry Fairfield Osborn, “Angulation of the limbs of Proboscidea, Dinocerata and Other Quadrupeds in Adaptation to Weight”, Amer. Nat., 34 (1900), 94. See also idem, “Oxyaena and Patriofelis Restudied as Terrestrial Creodonts”, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 13 (1900), 270–271.
Henry Fairfield Osborn, The Titanotheres of Ancient Wyoming (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1929), II, 731–759. Gregory in fact wrote substantial portions of that work, including a section on the musculature and restoration of the titanotheres (pp. 703–726) and a section on the principles of leverage and muscular action (pp. 727–731). For a clear statement on how Osborn's teaching and interpretations influenced Gregory see William King Gregory, “Origin of Human Limb Proportions through Change of Function”, Bull. N.Y. Acad. Med., 4 (1928), 239.
Studies on the efforts by Osborn and the DVP staff to develop artistic and technical means for displaying prehistoric life include: Adam Hermann, “Modern Laboratory Methods in Vertebrate Paleontology”, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 26 (1909), 283–331; Charles Schuchert and Clara Mae LeVene, O. C. Marsh: Pioneer in Paleontology (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940), p. 91; and Sylvia Massey Czerkas and Donald F. Glut, Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Cavemen: The Art of Charles R. Knight (New York: Dutton, 1982). The educational and social objectives embedded in those displays are discussed in John Michael Kennedy, “Philanthropy and Science in New York City: The American Museum of Natural History, 1868–1968”, Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1968; Charlotte M. Porter, “The Rise of Parnassus: Henry Fairfield Osborn and the Hall of the Age of Man”, Mus. Stud. J., 1 (1983), 26–34; and Donna Haraway, “Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, New York City, 1908–1936”, Soc. Text, 5 (1984), 20–64.
The reconstruction work done in the DVP, including the creation of mounted skeletons, paintings, and miniature and life-sized sculptures of extinct vertebrates, is discussed in Czerkas and Glut, Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Cavemen, pp. 10–39. On the work of Erwin Christman see William King Gregory, “A New Restoration of a Titanothere”, Amer. Mus. J., 12 (1912), 15–17; and William King Gregory, “Erwin S. Christman, 1885–1921, Draughtsman, Artist, Sculptor”, Nat. Hist., 21 (1921); 620–625.
Edwin H. Colbert, The Great Dinosaur Hunters and Their Discoveries, 2nd ed. (New York: Dover, 1984), pp. 54–90. Prior to the mountings of sauropod dinosaurs in 1905, other specimens had been mounted: in 1868 Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins mounted a specimen of Hadrosaurus foulki at Philadelphia's Academy of Natural Sciences, and in 1901 Charles Emerson Beecher put up a specimen of Claosaurus Annectens. On Hawkins see Richard C. Ryder, “Dusting Off America's First Dinosaur”, Amer. Heritage, 39 (1988), 68–73. On Beecher: Charles E. Beecher, “The Reconstruction of a Cretaceous Dinosaur, Claosaurus Annectens Marsh”, Trans. Conn. Acad. Arts Sci., 11 (1901), 311–324. The American Museum and the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh were the principal competitors in the race to discover and display sauropod dinosaurs. On the efforts at the American Museum see below, notes 13–15. At the Carnegie Museum John Bell Hatcher was the driving force behind the development of an important program in vertebrate paleontology that emphasized work on dinosaurs. Hatcher's chief studies, which included restoration and mounting of specimens, are: John Bell Hatcher, “Diplodocus Marsh: Its Osteology, Taxonomy, and Probable Habits, with Restoration of the Skeleton”, Mem. Carnegie Mus., 1 (1901), 1–63; and idem, “Osteology of Haplocanthosaurus, with Description of a New Species and Remarks on the Probable Habits of the Sauropods and the Age and Origin of the Atlantosaurus Beds”, Mem. Carnegie Mus., 2 (1903), 1–72.
William King Gregory, “William Diller Matthew 1871–1930”, Nat. Hist., 30 (1930), 664. Matthew's letter to Osborn, dated January 4, 1904, is in the William Diller Matthew Correspondence, Archives, Department of Vertebrate Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History.
Matthew discussed his views on dinosaurs in W. D. Matthew: “The Mounted Skeleton of Brontosaurus”, Amer. Mus. J., 5 (1905), 68; and “The Pose of Sauropod Dinosaurs”, Amer. Nat., 44 (1910), 547–560. He examined animal habits and functions in popular articles such as W. D. Matthew, “The Ground Sloth Group”, Amer. Mus. J., 11 (1911), 113–119, but he never fully pursued research along those lines in his more strictly scientific studies.
Gregory's supervision of artists and preparators working on dinosaurs and titanotheres is mentioned in the DVP's annual reports for 1901 and 1902, and is discussed in greater detail in the report for 1906, carton 2, Box 1:2, Archives, Department of Vertebrate Paleontology. The Christman drawings of Brontosaurus in motion, done under Gregory's supervision, are in the DVP Photo Files, Drawer 1, Archives, Department of Vertebrate Paleontology.
William King Gregory, “Notes on the Principles of Quadrupedal Locomotion and on the Mechanism of the Limbs in Hoofed Animals”, Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci., 22 (1912), 269.
William King Gregory, “Notes on the Principles of Quadrupedal Locomotion and on the Mechanism of the Limbs in Hoofed Animals”, Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci., 22 (1912), p. 284.
William King Gregory, “The Orders of Mammals”, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 27 (1910), 112–113.
William King Gregory, “The Orders of Mammals”, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 27 (1910), p. 226.
William King Gregory, “Present Status of the Problem of the Origin of the Tetrapoda, with Special Reference to the Skull and Paired Limbs”, Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci., 26 (1915), 317–383.
William King Gregory, “The Orders of Mammals”, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 27 (1910), pp. 277–288, 396.
Rainger, “Vertebrate Paleontology as Biology”, and Sloan, “Science in New York City”.
The creation of that department is noted in Ann. Rep. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 53 (1921), 33–34. Gregory described his program's needs and interests in a letter to Childs Frick, November 18, 1929, Box 7, Gregory Papers.
William King Gregory and L. A. Adams, “The Temporal Fossae of Vertebrates in Relation to the Jaw Muscles,” Science, 41 (1915), 764.
Roy W. Miner, “The Pectoral Limbs of Eryops and Other Primitive Tetrapods,” Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 51 (1925), 151–152.
Among Romer's studies that reflect a concern with the problems of functional morphology are Alfred S. Romer: “Crocodilian Pelvic Muscles and Their Avian and Reptilian Homologues,” Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 48 (1923), 533–552; “The Pelvic Musculature of Saurischian Dinosaurs,” ibid., pp. 605–617; “Pectoral Limb Musculature and Shoulder-girdle Structure in Fish and Tetrapods,” Anat. Rec., 27 (1924), 119–143; and “The Pelvic Musculature of Ornithischian Dinosaurs,” Acta. Zool., 8 (1927), 225–275. In addition to Romer, other Gregory students pursued different lines of research in functional morphology. While Charles Breder investigated the swimming motion of fishes, Percy M. Butler and a later generation of vertebrate paleontologists examined the wear of mammalian tooth cusps as a means for determining jaw motion and chewing action: Charles Breder, “The Locomotion of Fishes,” Zoologist, 4 (1926), 159–297; Percy M. Butler, “Studies of the Mammalian Dentition — Differentiation of Post-Canine Dentition,” Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 109 (1939), 1–36; and idem, “A Theory of the Evolution of Mammalian Molar Teeth,” Amer. J. Sci., 239 (1941), 421–450. I am grateful to Joseph. T. Gregory for bringing to my attention Gregory's influence on the work of these scientists.
William King Gregory and C. L. Camp, “Studies in Comparative Myology and Osteology, no. III,” Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 38 (1918), 519.
William King Gregory and C. L. Camp, “Studies in Comparative Myology and Osteology, no. III,” Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 38 (1918), p. 520.
Alfred S. Romer, “The Locomotor Apparatus of Certain Primitive Mammal-like Reptiles,” Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 46 (1922), 517–606.
Miner, “Pectoral Limbs of Eryops,” p. 300.
Gregory and Camp, “Studies in Comparative Myology,” p. 521.
William King Gregory, “The Dawn Man of Piltdown England,” Amer. Mus. J., 14 (1914), 189–200.
Gregory's first analysis of Notharctus was a two-part article: William King Gregory, “On the Relationship of the Eocene Lemur Notharctus to the Adapidae and to Other Primates,” and “On the Classification and Phylogeny of the Lemuroidea,” Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., 26 (1915), 419–446. A much more detailed analysis, and a work that remains a classic on primate morphology and phylogeny, is idem, “On the Structure and Relations of Notharctus, an American Eocene Primate. Studies on the Evolution of Primates. Part III,” Mem. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 3 (1920), 49–243.
William King Gregory, “Studies on the Evolution of Primates. II. Phylogeny of Recent and Extinct Anthropoids, with Special Reference to the Origin of Man,” Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 35 (1916), 258–355.
By Arthur Keith see the following publications: The Antiquity of Man (London: Williams and Norgate, 1915); The Engines of the Human Body (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1920); and perhaps his most influential paper, “Man's Posture: Its Evolution and Disorders,” Brit. Med. J., 1 (1923), 451–454, 499–502, 545–548, 587–590, 624–626, 699–702. Grafton Elliot Smith's major works are: The Evolution of Man (New York: Oxford University Press, 1918), and The Search for Man's Ancestors (New York: Oxford University Press, 1931). W. K. Gregory's chief study of primate tooth structure is The Origin and Evolution of Human Dentition (Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1922). Recent analyses of the interpretations of Gregory, Keith, and Elliot Smith include: Misia Landau, “Human Evolution as Narrative,” Amer. Sci., 72 (1984), 262–268; and Peter J. Bowler, Theories of Human Evolution: A Century of Debate, 1844–1944 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986).
Gregory, “Studies on the Evolution of Primates,” p. 294.
Ibid., p. 341.
William King Gregory, “The Origin of Man from the Anthropoid Stem - When and Where,” Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., 66 (1927), 456.
W. K. Gregory advanced that interpretation in numerous papers, including: “The Origin of Man from the Anthropoid Stem”; “How Near is the Relationship of Man to the Chimpanzee-Gorilla Stock,” Quart. Rev. Biol., 2 (1927), 549–560; “Were the Ancestors of Man Primitive Brachiators?” Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., 67 (1928), 129–150; and “Is the Pro-Dawn Man a Myth,” Human Biol., 1 (1929), 153–165. See also Bowler, Theories of Human Evolution, pp. 70–71.
Gerrit S. Miller, “Conflicting Views on the Problems of Man's Ancestry,” Amer. J. Phys. Anthrop., 3 (1920), 213–245.
Dudley J. Morton, who worked closely with Gregory in the Department of Comparative Anatomy of the American Museum, defined his views in “Evolution of the Human Foot. Part I,” Amer. J. Phys. Anthrop., 5 (1922), 305–336; “Evolution of the Human Foot. Part II,” ibid., 7 (1924), 1–50; and “Human Origin, Correlation of Previous Studies of Primate Feet with Other Morphologic Evidence,” ibid., 10 (1927), 173–203. Of Adolph Schultz, an embryologist and comparative anatomist at Johns Hopkins, see: “Characters Common to Higher Primates and Characters Specific for Man,” Quart. Rev. Biol., 2 (1936), 259–283, 425–455.
William King Gregory: “A Critique of Professor Frederick Wood-Jones's Paper: ‘Some Landmarks in the Phylogeny of Primates’,” Human Biol., 2 (1930), 101–104; and “The Transformation of Organic Designs: A Review of the Origin and Deployment of the Earlier Vertebrates,” Biol. Rev. Cambridge Phil. Soc., 11 (1936), 316–317.
Gregory, “Origin of Man from the Anthropoid Stem,” p. 458; and William King Gregory, “Two Views of the Origin of Man,” Science, 65 (1927), 601–605.
Gregory, “Studies on the Evolution of Primates,” p. 333.
Ibid., p. 340.
Ibid., p. 273.
Gregory, “Were the Ancestors of Man Primitive Brachiators?” p. 136. On Keith's views see Bowler, Theories of Human Evolution, pp. 70, 119.
Cope, Origin of the Fittest; Othenio Abel, Paläobiologie und Stammesgeschichte (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1929); William Berryman Scott, “On the Osteology of Mesohippus and Leptomeryx, with Observations on the Modes and Factors of Evolution in the Mammalia,” J. Morph., 5 (1891), 301–406.
Publications by Henry Fairfield Osborn include: “Evolution as It Appears to the Paleontologist,” Science, 26 (1907), 744–749; “Tetraplasy, the Law of the Four Inseparable Factors of Evolution,” J. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 2nd ser., 15 (1912), 275–309; and “Orthogenesis as Observed from Paleontological Evidence Beginning in the Year 1889,” Amer. Nat., 56 (1922), 134–143. For analyses of Osborn's views see Peter J. Bowler, The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian Evolution Theories in the Decades around 1900 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), pp. 174–180; and Leo F. Laporte, “Simpson's Tempo and Mode in Evolution Revisited,” Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., 127 (1983), 373–374.
William King Gregory, “Studies on the Evolution of Primates. II. Phylogeny of Recent and Extinct Anthropoids, with Special Reference to the Origin of Man,” Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 35 (1916) pp. 316–317.
William King Gregory, “Studies on the Evolution of Primates. II. Phylogeny of Recent and Extinct Anthropoids, with Special Reference to the Origin of Man,” Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 35 (1916) p. 308.
Gregory, “Critique of Wood-Jones's Paper.’ Gregory structured his full-length study, Man's Place Among the Anthropoids (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), around his opposition to Wood Jones's hypothesis that man had evolved, not from the higher primates (either monkey or ape), but rather from an advanced tarsioid. Wood Jones's most detailed defense of this argument was presented in Frederick Wood Jones, Man's Place Among the Mammals (London: Edward Arnold, 1929). See also Bowler, Theories of Human Evolution, pp. 119–125.
Henry Fairfield Osborn, The Age of Mammals in Europe, Asia, and North America (New York: Macmillan, 1910), pp. 372–509.
On polygenist thought in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries see George W. Stocking, “The Persistence of Polygenist Thought in Post-Darwinian Anthropology,” in Race, Culture and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology, ed. George W. Stocking (New York: Free Press, 1968), pp. 42–68; and Nancy Stepan, The Idea of Race in Science: Great Britain, 1800–1960 (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1982), pp. 83–139.
Osborn's personal correspondence with Frick, Grant, and others of equal socioeconomic standing differs quite clearly in terms of familiarity, manner of address, and other features from his correspondence with scientific associates like Gregory and Matthew. See, for example, Osborn's correspondence with Frick, Grant, and Frank Sturgis in the Osborn Papers, Archives, Library, American Museum of Natural Nistory.
On Henry Fairfield Osborn's commitment to eugenics see “Address of Welcome to the Second International Congress of Eugenics,” Science, 54 (1922), 311–313; and “Eugenics — the American and Norwegian Programs,” ibid., pp. 482–484. On birth selection see “Birth Selection vs. Birth Control,” Forum, 88 (1932). Osborn not only advocated eugenic controls and immigration restriction in his own work, he also promoted organized efforts on behalf of such policies. From 1918 until his death he headed a eugenics organization, the Galton Society, which was based in the American Museum. In addition, he was a strong supporter of the International Eugenics Congress and arranged for the second congress of 1928 to be held at the American Museum. Information concerning the Galton Society is in the Osborn Papers, alphabetical folder, and numbered folders 14, 33, and 34, Archives, Library, American Museum, while a bound volume on the Eugenics Congress is in the Osborn Papers, Memorabilia Room, Archives, American Museum. For analyses of Osborn's role in early twentiethcentury American eugenics see: Mark Haller, Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1963), pp. 60, 73–74, 155–157; and Kenneth M. Ludmerer, Genetics and American Society: A Historical Appraisal (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972), pp. 26–33.
See H. F. Osborn's preface to Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race (New York: Scribner's, 1916), pp. vii–ix, as well as the following articles: “The Approach to the Immigration Problem through Science,” Proc. Nat. Immig. Conf., Spec. Rep., No. 26 (1924), 44–53; “Lo the Poor Nordic: Professor Osborn's Position on the Immigration Question,” New York Times, April 8, 1924; and “Race Progress in Relation to Social Progress,” J. Nat. Inst. Soc. Sci., 9 (1924), 8–18. By the 1930s, when most American scientists had abandoned their earlier support of eugenics, Osborn was in fact praising the work of Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany (Henry Fairfield Osborn to Madison Grant, 1932, Osborn Papers, Archives, Library, American Museum). Osborn supported the work of H. H. Laughlin, an avowed advocate of immigration restricton on the basis of race, and sought to enlist Gregory in an attempt to elect Laughlin to the National Academy of Sciences so he could succeed Charles B. Davenport as director of the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor (letters from Osborn to Gregory, Box 5, Gregory Papers, and letters between Osborn and Laughlin in Folder 33, Osborn Papers).
William King Gregory to M. F. Ashley-Montagu, October 1, 1942, Box 1, Gregory Papers. Gregory in a letter to Madison Grant resigned as secretary of the Galton Society, claiming that he didn't share Grant and Osborn's “generous impulse to labor for the protection of this country against the invasion of ‘barbarians’” (William King Gregory to Madison Grant, October 20, 1930, Osborn Papers). In 1935 Gregory in fact resigned from the Galton Society altogether, possibly because of a disagreement over Osborn's support of the racial policies of Nazi Germany; see Osborn to Gregory, March 23, 1935, Box 13, Gregory Papers.
Gregory's only published discussions of racial issues that I have found are book reviews of contemporary works on anthropology and race; these include his reviews of Roland B. Dixon, The Racial History of Man, and of Hermann Klaatsch, The Evolution and Progress of Mankind, both in Yale Rev., 14 (1925), 598–602.
H. F. Osborn's articles on the “Dawn Man” theory include: “‘Dawn Man’ Appears as Our First Ancestor,” New York Times, January 9, 1927; “Fundamental Discoveries of the Last Decade in Human Evolution,” Bull. N.Y. Acad. Med., 2nd ser., 3 (1927), 513–521; “Recent Discoveries Relating to the Origin and Antiquity of Man,” Science, 65 (1927), 481–488; “The Influence of Habit in the Evolution of Man and the Great Apes,” Bull. N.Y. Acad. Med., 2nd ser., 4 (1928), 216–230; and “Is the Ape-Man a Myth,” Human Biol., 1 (1929), 2–16. See also the discussion of Osborn's views in Bowler, Theories of Human Evolution, pp. 125–129, 176–179, 195.
Henry Fairfield Osborn, “Recent Discoveries Relating to the Origin and Antiquity of Man,” Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., 66 (1927), 382. Osborn attacked Bryan and the fundamentalists in Henry Fairfield Osborn, The Earth Speaks to Bryan (New York: Scribners, 1925).
William King Gregory to D. M. S. Watson, January 3, 1927, Box 18, Gregory Papers. Gregory expressed his intense dislike of the fundamentalists privately and in print; see his satiric discussion of “pithecophobiacs” in William King Gregory, “The Bearing of the Australopithecinae upon the Problem of Man's Place in Nature,” Amer. J. Phys. Anthrop., n.s., 7 (1949), 485–487.
The original discovery and announcement of the Piltdown specimen in 1911–1912 provoked a great deal of controversy, largely because it combined a humanlike skull and brain case with an apelike jaw and teeth. While several leading British scientists - including Keith, Elliot Smith, and Arthur Smith Woodward - accepted the validity of the specimen and felt justified in creating a new species, Eoanthropus dawsoni, Osborn, Matthew, and a number of American scientists had serious doubts. See Henry Fairfield Osborn, Men of the Old Stone Age, Their Environment, Life and Art (New York: Scribners, 1915), pp. 130–144; W. D. Matthew, “Appendix B. Note on the Association of the Piltdown Skull and Jaw,” in Gregory, “Studies on the Evolution of Primates,” pp. 348–350; and Gerrit S. Miller, “The Jaw of Piltdown Man,” Smithsonian Misc. Colls., 65 (1915), 1–31. Gregory accepted the validity of the skull and jaw from the outset, primarily because the two fragments were found within a yard of one another and at the same geological level; see Gregory: “Dawn Man of Piltdown,” pp. 189–200; and “Studies on the Evolution of Primates,” pp. 313–320. Discovery of additional specimens, particularly the find in 1915 of parts of the brain case and a molar tooth similar to the original fragments, eventually led most scientists, including Osborn and Matthew, to accept the Piltdown specimens as belonging to a fossil hominid. Gregory announced this in a letter to T. Wingate Todd, November 18, 1921, Box 17, Gregory Paper; while Osborn did so in more grandiose fashion, discussing his 1921 visit to the site and subsequent conversion in Henry Fairfield Osborn, Man Rises to Parnassus: Critical Epochs in the Prehistory of Man (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1927), pp. 45–69. Miller never did accept the findings from Piltdown as genuine: see Gerrit S. Miller to William King Gregory, March 10, 1917; April 11, 1918; August 24, 1926; and January 22, 1937, Box 12, Gregory Papers. See also Miller's later analyses: Gerrit S. Miller, “The Piltdown Jaw,” Amer. J. Phys. Anthrop., 1 (1918), 25–52; and idem, “The Controversy Over Human ‘Missing Links,’” Smithsonian Inst. Ann. Rept., 1929, pp. 413–465. For a discussion of the history of the Piltdown controversy see J. S. Weiner, The Piltdown Forgery (New York: Oxford University Press, 1955); Ronald Millar, The Piltdown Men (New York: Ballantine Books, 1972); and Stephen Jay Gould, “The Piltdown Controversy,” in Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, ed. idem (New York: Norton, 1983), pp. 199–218.
Henry Fairfield Osborn, Men of the Old Stone Age, Their Environment, Life and Art (New York: Scribners, 1915), p. 489. See also his diagram of the evolution of human races, p. 491.
Osborn, “Origin and Antiquity of Man” (above, n. 61), p. 389.
Ibid., p. 376.
Gregory to Watson, January 3, 1927, Gregory Papers. See also William King Gregory to Henry Fairfield Osborn, April 21, 1927, Osborn Papers, Archives, Department of Vertebrate Paleontology; and William King Gregory to Henry Fairfield Osborn, January 2, 1928, Box 13, Gregory Papers. Not only did Osborn publish his views in scientific periodicals, he also used the public press and media to his advantage. Many of his pronouncements appeared in newspaper articles and popular magazines, and several originated as radio talks. Despite his gentlemanly attitude toward Osborn, Gregory at times felt frustrated by Osborn's easy access to the media and the widespread dissemination of his views.
At a meeting of the Galton Society, Gregory and J. H. McGregor presented to Osborn detailed tables of evidence from several fields of research that documented the common heritage of man and apes and the problems inherent in Osborn's “Dawn Man” theory. To some extent Osborn recognized the significance of such evidence and the force of Gregory's argument; nevertheless, Gregory and McGregor were unable to convince him of the inaccuracy of the “Dawn Man” theory. See William King Gregory to Henry Fairfield Osborn, October 26 and November 18, 1927, Box 13, Gregory Papers. The materials that Gregory and McGregor presented to Osborn are in the Osborn Correspondence, Archives, Department of Vertebrate Paleontology.
Gregory, “Two Views of the Origin of Man,” p. 602. On the multifaceted nature of the debate between Osborn and Gregory see John G. Fleagle and William L. Jungers, “Fifty Years of Higher Primate Phylogeny,” in A History of American Physical Anthropology 1930–1980, ed. Frank Spencer (New York: Academic Press, 1982), p. 195.
The criticisms of Osborn's views are detailed in a series of letters in which Gregory and Matthew responded to a manuscript defining Osborn's interpretation. These include: Gregory to Osborn, May 14, December 11, December 14, and December 21, 1914; and letters from Matthew to Osborn, December 8 and December 9, 1914, all of which are in the Osborn Papers, Memorabilia Room, Archives, American Museum. Osborn's responses include a letter (no date) to Gregory, and penciled comments throughout the Gregory and Matthew letters. Osborn had no hesitation in publishing or referring to his associates' serious criticisms of his evolutionary ideas, but Gregory, in a letter to Osborn of May 20, 1917, stated that he and Matthew both preferred not to be cited as disagreeing with Osborn in print.
Osborn, “Is the Ape-Man a Myth,” pp. 7–9. See also Henry Fairfield Osborn, “The Discovery of Tertiary Man,” Science, 71 (1930), 6–7.
Gregory, “Origin of Man from Anthropoid Stock,” pp. 429–436.
William King Gregory, “A Critique of Professor Osborn's Theory of Human Origin”, Amer. J. Phys. Anthrop., 14 (1930), 155.
Louis Dollo, “Les lois d'évolution”, Bull. Soc. Belge Géol. Paléont. Hydrogeol, 7 (1893), 164–166. For a modern interpretation of Dollo's law and the misunderstandings it has created see Stephen Jay Gould, “Dollo on Dollo's Law: Irreversibility and the Status of Evolutionary Laws,” J. Hist. Biol., 3 (1970), 189–212. Gregory's recognition that changes of function could produce profound alterations in evolutionary trends enabled him to interpret Dollo's law in a manner that present-day biologists and paleontologists would deem correct. See the following articles by W. K. Gregory: “Were the Ancestors of Man Primitive Brachiators?” pp. 139–145; “Transformation of Organic Designs” (above, n. 42); and “On the Meaning and Limits of Irreversibility of Evolution,” Amer. Nat., 70 (1936), 517–528.
William King Gregory, “The Origin, Rise and Decline of Homo Sapiens,” Sci. Monthly, December 1934, p. 489.
Gregory, “Two Views of the Origin of Man,” p. 602.
Gregory, “Is the Pro-Dawn Man a Myth” (above, n. 39), p. 162.
William King Gregory to Robert Broom, [1933], Box 3, Gregory Papers.
There exists little correspondence between Gregory and Morgan in the Gregory Papers, and in one of his few comments on Morgan, Gregory stated that Morgan sought to drive Columbia students away from the study of paleontology. The reference is in the unpublished paper, William King Gregory, “Fifty Years in the Department of Zoology, 1896–1946,” Box J, Gregory Papers. For Gregory's views on genetics see Gregory, “Transformation of Organic Designs,” pp. 339–341; and William King Gregory, “On Design in Nature,” Yale Rev., 13 (1924), 344–345. Gregory defined his views on genetics more frequently in private than in print: William King Gregory to Paul Lappe, July 31, 1931, and Gregory to Thomas F. Cunningham, March 1, 1938, Boxes 5 and 2, Gregory Papers. One of Gregory's most forthright statements on genetics occurs in a letter to the British naturalist W. P. Pycraft: according to Gregory, “the pressure of populations and other aspects of Natural Selection play an important role both in enforcing standardization and in changing standards. Assuredly the external environment sets conditions to which those who dwell in it must conform. Also, at least some of our leading American geneticists (e.g., Morgan, Jennings, Conklin) have always insisted that the final results are produced by the reaction of forces in the germplasm with those in the cytoplasm. I can not see that there is any conflict between sound work in genetics, paleontology, taxonomy, and comparative anatomy” (Gregory to W. P. Pycraft, June 8, 1936, Box 7, Gregory Papers).
Gregory, “Transformation of Organic Designs,” p. 339.
Gregory to Broom, [1933], Gregory Papers. Also William King Gregory to W. F. Decker, January 22, 1937, Box 2, Gregory Papers; and a particularly detailed letter in which Gregory defines his views to A. Cressy Morrison, February 9, 1941, Box 11, Gregory Papers.
In response to a letter from the Yale paleontologist Charles Schuchert, Gregory defined his view that habits condition evolutionary change, but do so by natural selection and not in Lamarckian terms: William King Gregory to Charles Schuchert, October 21, 1915, Box 16, Gregory Papers.
Garland E. Allen, “Naturalists and Experimentalists: The Genotype and the Phenotype”, Stud. Hist. Biol., 3 (1979), 179–209; Ernst Mayr, “Prologue: Some Thoughts on the History of the Evolutionary Synthesis,” in The Evolutionary Synthesis: Perspectives on the Unification of Biology, ed. Ernst Mayr and William B. Provine (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 1–48; and Ernst Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982).
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Rainger, R. What's the use: William King Gregory and the functional morphology of fossil vertebrates. J Hist Biol 22, 103–139 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00209605
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00209605