Finding Aid for Iltis Mendeliana Collection, 1841-1984 | University of Illinois Archives

By William Maher

Service Location	Boxes	Request
146 Library, 1408 W. Gregory Drive	Box 14	Request Box 14
146 Library, 1408 W. Gregory Drive	Boxes 1-10	Request Boxes 1-10
146 Library, 1408 W. Gregory Drive	Boxes 11-13	Request Boxes 11-13
Digital files: May require 24 hours notice for retrieval	e-records	Request e-records
146 Library, 1408 W. Gregory Drive	Item 114	Request Item 114

Submit request (Aeon) | email

Email us about these papers | printer

Print this information

Collection Overview

Title: Iltis Mendeliana Collection, 1841-1984

ID: 15/24/56

Primary Creator: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Department of Genetics and Development

Extent: 5.5 cubic feet

Arrangement: By source, and numerical or chronological thereunder

Subjects: Corn, Czechoslovakia, Genetics, Museums

Formats/Genres: Papers

Languages: English, German

Scope and Contents of the Materials

Iltis Mendeliana Collection originally purchased (1955) by the University from the heirs of Dr. Hugo Iltis (1882-ca. 1950) and maintained by the Natural History Museum contains museum display boards and research files including biographical materials relating to Gregor Mendel (1822-84) and original manuscripts (1850, 1880) relating to the completion of his academic studies, Mendel's publications (1862-63, 1865, 1869-70) photographs of Mendel and his colleagues (1863), places in the present Czech Republic associated with Mendel and his research on genetics, a painting by J. O. Flatter of Mendel, plaques and commemorative certificates relating to Mendel, portraits of famous geneticists (including a 1878 photograph of Charles Darwin taken by Leonard Darwin), correspondence, photographs, and publications relating to the history of genetics and Mendel's role in scientific research. This series includes a limited number of original Mendel manuscripts, photographic copies and transcriptions of those manuscripts, and display boards illustrating the principles of genetics developed in the 1940s by Hugo Iltis for a "Mendel Museum" at Mary Washington College (Fredericksburg, Virginia) and boards used by the Natural History Museum, including the"Honor Role of Corn" containing captioned photographs of researchers in the hybridization of corn.

Biographical Note

Courses have been taught in Zoology since 1868 under the Department of General Science and Literature;¹ Department of Natural History (1868-69);² College of Natural History, Zoological Department (1870);³College of Natural Science, School of Natural History (1871-90);⁴ College of Science, School of Natural Science (1891-93);⁵ College of Science, Natural Science Group (1893-1900 );⁶ College of Science, General Science Group (1900-01);⁷ College of Science, Department of Zoology (1901-13);⁸ and in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (1913-73).⁹ In 1884, the Department became a clearly defined course of study.¹⁰ The Department granted B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Zoology and offered courses in genetics, parasitology, ecology, and physiology.¹¹ In 1973, the Department of Zoology was divided into two provisional departments: the Department of Ecology,Ethology, and Evolution and the Department of Genetics and Development within the of Life Sciences. In March 17, 1976 the Board of Trustees approved the reorganized department.¹² Genetics and development was approved by the University Senate as one of the specializations within regulatory biology to convey an emphasis of the department.¹³ The Executive Committee of the School of Life Sciences in 1986 decided to dissolve the Department of Genetics and Development and in 1990 approved a Senate recommendation to terminate the department.¹⁴ According to Professor David Nanney the dissolution of thedepartment was a "turf war" concerning genetics and its proper location within the university.¹⁵ The Board of Trustees renamed the Department of Anatomical Sciences as the Department of Cell and Structural Biology.¹⁶

1. Board of Trustees Transactions, 1st Report, June 13, 1868, p. 50.

2. Ibid, 2nd Report, January 12-22, 1869, p. 5-6.

3. Fourth Annual Circular, Illinois Industrial University, 1870-71, p. 34.

4. Catalogs and Registers, 1878-79, p. 23; 1889-90, p. 35.

5. Catalogs and Register, 1891-92, p. 26.

6. Catalogs and Registers, 1893-94, p. 48.

7. Catalogs and Registers, 1900-01, p. 61.

8. Catalogs and Registers, 1901-02, p. 124.

9. Board of Trustees Transactions, 27th Report, July 5, 1912, p. 71.

10. Catalogs and Registers, 1884-85, p. 67.

11. Graduate Study Catalog, 1971-72, p. 288-293.

12. Board of TRustees Transactions, 58th Report, March 17, 1976, p. 576.

13. Board of TRustees Transactions, 62nd Report, July 21, 1983, p. 298-299.

14. Board of Trustees agenda, June 14, 1990, #17.

15. Daily Illini, Tuesday, June 19, 1990, p. 1, 4.

16. Board of Trustees Transactions, 64th Report, April 14, 1988, p. 514.

Subject/Index Terms

Corn
Czechoslovakia
Genetics
Museums

Administrative Information

Repository: University of Illinois Archives

Accruals: 4/14/2005

Access Restrictions: Access is provided only with the written permission of the University Archivist.

Other Note: 10 Pages

PDF Box/Folder List

URL: https://files.archon.library.illinois.edu/uasfa/1524056.pdf

PDF finding aid for Iltis Mendeliana Collection (15/24/56)

Box and Folder Listing

Browse by Box:

[Box 1],
[Box 2],
[Folder 12],
[Folder 13],
[Box 3],
[Folder 2],
[Folder 3],
[Series 1: Natural History Museum Mendeliana Collection Resource Files],
[Box 5],
[Box 6],
[Box 7],
[Box 8],
[Box 9],
[Box 10],
[Box 11],
[Box 12],
[Box 13],
[Box 14],
[All]

Box 1

Folder 1: Transfer lists

a) “Gregor Mendel Museum, Fredericksburg, Virgina Shelf List” (original ribbon-copy typescript inventory of Iltis’ Mendel Collection, with pencil, pen, and marker annotations presumably added by the Natural History Museum).

b) handwritten list (8 pages) of original Mendel “relics” and other Mendel-related items as prepared by the Natural History Museum some time after the 1961 acquisition of the Mendel clock.

c) spreadsheet inventory prepared by the University Archives on its acquisition of the collection in 2005

Folder 2: Mendel’s birthplace in Heinzendorf, Silesia

Contains caption only.

Folder 3: The parents consent for Mendel to be priest

Contains photographic facsimile and caption.

Folder 4: Mendel’s sisters and his brother-in-law

Contains photograph and caption.

Folder 5: The Common Ancestors of Mendel and Mrs. Hugo Iltis

Contains a display board.

Folder 6: The convent hall of the monastery, Brünn

Contains photograph, negative, and caption.

Folder 7: Brünn, Spielberg and Franzensberg

Contains photograph, negative, and caption.

Folder 8: Gregor Mendel, oil portrait by J.O. Flatter, London

Contains negative. See also box 9.

Folder 9: The members of the convent of the Augustines, Brünn

Contains caption only. Fredericksburg 1950 checklist indicates “on exhibit.”

Folder 10: The “Fuchsia Portrait”, 1862

Contains photographs, negative, and caption

Folder 11: Mendel in 1847

Contains photograph and caption.

Folder 12: Brünn Committee of Natural Science, 1862

Contains photograph and caption.

Folder 13: The “Distorted” Photo of Mendel in 1867

Contains caption only.

Folder 14: Mendel’s experimental garden

Contains negative and caption.

Folder 15: Carl Nägeli

Contains photograph and caption.

Folder 16: Nägeli’s letter of reply to Mendel’s first letter, 1867

Contains photographic facsimile of a single page and caption.

Folder 17: Mendel’s Apiary Renovated, ca. 1940

Contains photograph, negative, and caption.

Folder 18: Cage for bee crossing constructed by Mendel

Contains photograph and caption.

Folder 19: Mendel’s observations of the sunspots

Contains photographic facsimile and caption.

Folder 20: Mendel’s letter of protest regarding the tax bill

Photographic facsimile, negative, and caption.

Folder 21: Mendel’s telescope

Contains photograph, negative, and caption.

Folder 22: Mendel’s microscope

Contains photograph and caption.

Folder 23: Rudolph Jakob Camerarius 1665-1721

Contains photograph and caption.

Folder 24: Cotton Mather, 1663-1728

Contains photograph and caption.

Folder 25: Paul Dudley, 1675-1751

Contains photograph and caption.

Folder 26: Thomas Andrew Knight, 1759-1838

Contains photograph and caption.

Folder 27: Charles Naudin, 1815-1899

Contains photograph and caption.

Folder 28: William Spillman, 1863-1931

Contains photograph, negative, and caption.

Folder 29: Cotton Mather’s letter to James Petiver, 1716, photostat presented to the Mendel Museum by Prof. Conway Zirkle of the University of Pennsylvania, December 22, 1939, 1716, 1939

Folder 30: Mendel’s original experiment with the pea: Smooth x wrinkled, 2005

Contains digital photograph taken July 7, 2005 and a caption

Folder 31: The F2 hybrid

Contains caption only.

Folder 32: Mendel’s original exp. with pea: Yellow x green

Contains caption only.

Folder 33: Mendel’s original exp. with pea: Colored seed coat x white

Contains caption only.

Folder 34: Mendel’s Original Experiments with the Pea., 2005

Contains a digital photograph taken July 7, 2005 of the exhibit display board prepared by Hugo Iltis (ca. 1943). Display board was discarded in July 2005.

Folder 35: Mendel’s original exp. with pea: dihybrids: yellow smooth x green wrinkled

Contains caption only.

Folder 36: Checker board showing Mendel’s theory and its proof by the back-cross experiments with the pea

Contains caption only.

Folder 37: The experimental garden in Brünn, 1938

Contains photograph, negative, and caption.

Folder 38: The Mendel Memorial, Brünn

Contains photograph and negative (8" x 10").

Folder 39: Gregor Mendel Plaque by Theodor Charlemont of Vienna, 1910

Contains framed plaster (?) plaque and caption. See also box 8.

Folder 40: Part of the Mendel Museum in the monastery Brünn

Contains photograph.

Folder 41: Carl W. Eichling, New Orleans, La., the only American who knew Mendel personally.

Contains photograph, negative, and caption.

Folder 42: Hugo de Vries

Contains photograph and caption.

Folder 43: Carl Correns

Contains photograph and caption.

Folder 44: Erich Tschermak

Contains photograph and caption.

Folder 45: Original letter of August Weisman to Hugo Iltis, 1906

Contains caption and transcription.

Folder 46: Original letters of Hugo de Vries of the Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, 1911, 1922

Folder 47: Original letter of Carl Correns to Hugo Iltis, 1907

Folder 48: Two original letters of Erich Tschermak to Hugo Iltis, November 10, 1905 and July (?) 8, 1906

Folder 49: Theodor Boveri

Contains photograph and caption.

Folder 50: Oscar Hertwig

Contains photograph.

Folder 51: August Weismann

Contains photograph and caption.

Folder 52: Lang’s Snail Crossings, 2005

Contains a digital photograph taken July 7, 2005 of the exhibit display board prepared by Hugo Iltis (ca. 1943). The original was discarded July 2005.

Folder 53: Honor roll of corn, captioned portrait photographs

2 folders