The bulk of the correspondence in the Dobzhansky collection is comprised of invitations, letters of recommendation, travel arrangements, referee reports, requests for visits, reprints, etc., inquiries concerning fellowships, scholarships, graduate study, and postdoctoral work. His travel itinerary was astounding; his letters abounding with comments on the marvels of jet-age transportation.

Many of the letters between Dobzhansky and his former students date from his years at Davis. In addition to the correspondence with L. Ehrman, R.C. Lewontin, J. Powell, R.C. Richmond, E.B. Spiess, and B. Wallace, correspondence with W.W. Anderson (14 items, 1971-75), D.W. Crumpacker (24 items, 1969-75), and D. Weisbrot (12 items, 1971-75) has survived. Dobzhansky considered his graduate students to be his "intellectual progeny," and he remained actively concerned for their work and careers long after they had received their degrees.

Dobzhansky had strong opinions about current political issues, and especially the effect of politics on the freedom of scientists to pursue their work. His letters to J. Powell and his diaries during the early 1970s contain numerous comments on Richard Nixon and Watergate, moreover, he addressed himself to the situations in Chile (Koref-Santibañez, 1970-74; see also Ehrman), Greece (Kastritsis, 1970), and Israel (Weisbrot).

Between 1969 and 1975, Dobzhansky also dealt with the conditions under which Russian geneticists in general, and Zhores Medvedev in particular, were working (see correspondence with M. M. Green, M. D. Grmek, A. Gustafsson, T. H. Jukes, D. G. Kenefick, I. M. Lerner and Medvedev (many in Russian); Muntzing, and van Gelder). Correspondence between Dobzhansky and his Russian colleagues was severely restricted by Soviet authorities for many years, nevertheless he was able to reestablish contact with several of them in the late 1960s, and approximately 175 letters in Russian are preserved in the collection. All date either from 1927-1935 or from 1968-1975, and among the significant correspondents are Y.A. Filipchenko, N.I. Dubinin, I.I. Schmalhausen, N.W. Timoféeff-Ressovsky, and Dobzhansky's former students, Julius Kerkis and M. Levit. Photocopies of Dobzhansky's letters received by Filpchenko, Vavilov, and Medvedev have been added to the collection courtesy of the State Public Library, Leningrad.

Revealing correspondence between Dobzhansky and the evolutionary biologist, Ernst Mayr, regarding speciation, evolutionary theory, and genetics.

Permission to quote from Series II must be obtained in advance from Ernst Mayr.

The fifty-four notebooks and diaries give a virtually uninterrupted first-hand commentary on Dobzhansky's life and career, save for the period 1936-1941. Although the earliest dates are 1934, the first entries (sketches and data on coccinellid beetles) may have been made as early as 1917. With few exceptions, the entries are all in Russian, although two long stretches written in English occur during the late 1940s and early 1950s (presumably the years during which he felt most alienated from Russia) and from 1971 until his death. In an entry from this period, he commented that he was again writing in English so that his last thoughts would be accessible to friends and relatives unable to read Russian.

Throughout the notebooks, Dobzhansky included extracts or copies of personal letters to or from family members and close friends. These record details of Dobzhansky's day-to-day life often lacking in his professional correspondence, and serve to round out the picture of his personality. These preserved items become increasingly numerous as he became older, particularly after the death of his wife in 1968. Among the manuscripts in the collection are 46 essays Dobzhansky wrote about his travels and sent home to his friends. He was often urged to publish these in collected form, but failed to do so. Excerpts from one appeared in 1970; but they were not published in their entirety until edited by Bentley Glass in 1985.

Manuscript of Dobzhansky's Human Culture: A Moment in Evolution (N.Y.: Columbia, 1983), with proofreader's notations.

Two bound volumes of published articles dedicated (and usually inscribed) to Dobzhansky on the occasion of his 70th birthday in 1970, written by colleagues, former students, and friends.

With the paucity of material from early in Dobzhansky's life, the Reminiscences assume a considerable importance for documenting the early parts of his career and, apart from some materials in Russia, are the only source for his life prior to emigration.

The two volumes of "Reminiscences," transcripts from the Columbia Oral History Project interviews conducted by Barbara Land in 1962, give a remarkably coherent and self-conscious picture of Dobzhansky's life. Encompassing descriptions of his childhood and student years in Russia, candid and anecdotal accounts of the people he had known throughout his career, and the places where he had worked and the experiments he had done, the reminiscences also include thoughts on various historical and political issues. Dobzhansky annotated them between 1962-1975, supplying names and dates as he remembered them, and adding information about his family background. The final notes are dated December 17, 1975, the day of his death.

Journal, in Russian, kept during the year prior to Dobzhansky's departure from the Soviet Union.

Due to the fragility of the original, photocopy must be used.

A miscellaneous collection of awards and memorabilia, including major awards such as the Kimber Award in Genetics, the National Medal of Science, and the Daniel Elliot Giraud Medal.

A mixture of candid photographs of Dobzhansky, his wife Natasha, and their friends, and photographs taken during field excursions and at meetings from throughout his career. Includes some formal portraits of Dobzhansky at various stages of life.