3 The New York Years (1931–1953)

190 5 Biological Species and Speciation—Mayr’s First Synthesis
the Whitney Expedition. This was before the days of Kodachrome, but we had an
artist at the AMNH who did a beautiful job coloring lantern slides. It seems that
my lecture was such a contrast to Sewall Wright’s preceding one that everybody
thought I had given a splendid lecture.”
This was one of those historical accidents or chance events which shaped Mayr’s
career in evolutionary biology (p. 4). He liked to say jokingly that he basically owes
it to Sewall Wright.
The Jesup Lectures on Evolution 4
Within half an hour after Mayr’s lecture in Columbus, Ohio, the geneticist Leslie
C. Dunn (1893–1974) of the Department of Zoology, Columbia University (New
York) approached him asking whether he would like to be the Jesup Lecturer at
Columbia University on the “new systematics” in the near future. “I was scared stiff
by the challenge to give these prestigious lectures, but what could I do but accept?”
(Mayr in retrospect 1997d: 179). During the next two months they considered
the preparation of a book on modern taxonomy (or “new systematics”) and of
a lecture series on animal and plant systematics by Ernst Mayr and Professor
Edgar Anderson, geneticist at the Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis. This is
documented by the following letters: 5
Dear Mayr, March 8, 1940
I talked last year with several people about future plans for the Columbia
Biological Series and we agreed that a book on the new taxonomy or on
taxonomy as interpreted by modern workers would be very valuable and
timely. Your mention of Anderson the other afternoon suggests that you might
notbeaversetoundertakingsuchabookjointlywithamanlikeAnderson
who is interested in taxonomy as a botanist. One scheme we discussed was
whether you and he might jointly undertake the Jessup [sic] Lectures provided
we could recapture the fund which was withdrawn after Dobzhansky’s and
Northrop’s lectures. I have no authority to discuss the lectureship, but if you
were interested in such a possibility I could consult my colleagues here and the
Administration and see what the prospects might be.
Sincerely yours, L. C. Dunn.
4 Named after Morris K. Jesup (1830–1908), a New York philanthropist and one-time
president of the AMNH. “Jesup Lectures” were held for a few years after 1905 and
revived by L.C. Dunn in 1937 (Cain 2001).
5 The letters and documents quoted in this section are in the Mayr Papers, Ernst Mayr Library,
Museum of Comparative Zoology, and Pusey Library, Harvard University Archives,
Cambridge, Massachusetts (HUGFP 14.7, Box 1, Folder 37 and Box 2, Folders 71 and 74).