An extensive archive of material related to the life and work of Harvard entomologist and developmental biologist Dr. Carroll M. Williams, including:
1. A group of 5 Typed Manuscripts Signed, Autograph Manuscripts Signed, and Typed Manuscripts, together 62 pp, titled "The Breathing of Insects" (TMS with numerous manuscript amendments and corrections, in 2 drafts); "Summary of the Five Papers Reported at the Present Meetings" (AMS); "Time Table for the Development of Male Chilled Cecropia at 25 degrees Celsius" (TMS with manuscript amendments); "It Isn't Sexual Activity" (TM), "Unpublished Research ... Proposed Research" (TM); no date [1940s-50s], Cambridge, Mass.
2. A group of 12 notecards with notes and diagrams related to the Cecropia moth; handwritten notes labeled "Cecropia Totals," 2 pp; manuscript diagram labeled "Peptidase Cleavage of Diverse Hormones from Parental Polypeptide," 1 p.
3. A group of 22 color photo negatives by ROMAN VISHNIAC, 4 x 5 inches, being unpublished images for an article on Dr. Williams and his work titled "Why Insects Change Form," published in the February 11, 1952 issue of Life magazine; with a few additional unidentified negatives and several offprint copies of the article.
4. A group of 14 small memo books, 12mo, completed in manuscript, being the daily notebooks of Dr. Williams, including notes on lectures attended, names and addresses of acquaintances, reminders of appointments, names of restaurants, lists of errands, etc.; and with a bound manuscript journal of Dr. Williams' 1985 trip to China with photographs of the trip loosely inserted.
5. A 15 1/2 x 15 1/2 inch oil painting by STANLEY MELTZOFF, being the original art for the cover illustration of Scientific American for April 1950, for a cover story about Williams work on insect metamorphosis.
6. Additional material including offprints of journal articles authored by Williams and by colleagues; awards from various scientific institutes; congratulatory notes from colleagues; a large group of photographs of Williams in the lab, the classroom, with colleagues, and with family; school papers; press clippings, etc.
Provenance: Carroll Milton Williams; by descent to present owner.

SCIENTIFIC ARCHIVE OF A GROUNDBREAKING ENTOMOLOGIST. Working in the research labs at Harvard University, Carroll Williams made several important breakthroughs in the 1940s and 50s in the area of insect morphology which continue to be the basis of research in the field today. The present archive gathers together several manuscripts and notes on morphology, a group of journals which include notes taken at lectures attended by Williams, notes of congratulations from colleagues (including one from A.O. Wilson), offprints and other printed material, an original oil painting by Stanley Meltzoff for a Scientific American cover story about Williams' work, as well as a group of 22 color photo negatives by Russian-American photographer ROMAN VISHNIAC, best known for his documentation of the Eastern European Jewry during World War II, but who also had a keen interest in insect photography. Vishniac took photographs for a Life magazine article on the work of Williams, and the two men and their families formed a lasting friendship (see preceding lot).
"One of the foremost physiologists and developmental biologists of his generation, Williams, along with the late Sir Vincent Wigglesworth of Cambridge University, revealed the network of hormones that govern the growth and development of insects. In the 1950s Williams became the first to extract and characterize the juvenile hormone, the substance that holds insects in the immature, larval stage until they have grown to the appropriate size to transform into adults ... Pressing this and other findings with his collaborators, Williams conceptualized what has become known as the Third Generation Pesticides, the synthetic analogs of juvenile hormone which in very small amounts retard and halt normal development ... These materials have the advantage of being non-toxic to most other forms of life– in other words, an approach to the much sought-after 'magic bullets' of ecology" (Memorial Minute Adopted by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, December 12, 1995).