Large Archive of Personal and Scientific Correspondence Documenting Nobel Prize Winning Carl Cori and Gerty Cori Spanning More Than 30 Years

Carl Cori Gerty Cori Medicine Science

Ephemera

Carl and Gerty Cori scientific and family correspondence archive, 1920–1954, documenting the formation of their American laboratory partnership at Buffalo, its development into the work for which they shared the 1947 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Gerty becoming the first American woman to win the Prize, and only the third woman awarded a Nobel in science. The archive also covers the family's continuing movement between Central Europe and the United States through the early Cold War. The strongest sequence begins in 1922 on the letterhead of the State Institute for the Study of Malignant Disease (now Roswell Park), where Carl reports that Harvey Gaylord has given Gerty a salaried post as pathological assistant and writes, "Es ist sehr schön dass wir jetzt zusammen arbeiten können" ("It is very lovely that we can now work together"), before describing a subject he had selected to pursue jointly with her. These letters record the partnership while its professional structure was still being established.

Cori, Carl F.; Cori, Gerty T.; Cori, Carl Isidor; and family correspondents. Approximately 94 letters in German, typed and handwritten, ranging from postcard format to approximately 8 x 10 inches, including correspondence on State Institute for the Study of Malignant Disease letterhead, Washington University School of Medicine stationery, postcards, and air letter forms. Austria, Czechoslovakia, and the United States, 1920–1954.

The earliest letters, handwritten from Vienna and Bohemia in 1920, concern clinical appointments, professional introductions, medical work, family relationships, and plans during the Coris' final Central European years before their move to the United States. A concentrated run of typed letters from Buffalo in 1922 records the beginning of Carl and Gerty's work at the State Institute for the Study of Malignant Disease. On June 13 Carl writes that "Dr Gaylord war wieder fabelhaft nett zu mir. Er gab Gerty eine Stelle als pathologische Assistentin mit 2500$ jährlich" ("Dr. Gaylord was again fabulously kind to me. He gave Gerty a position as pathological assistant at $2,500 a year"), then states that it is very lovely that they can now work together, and explains that he has already chosen a subject he intends to carry out with her. A July 2 letter finds Carl assessing his prospects in America with unusual confidence: "Hier wird die Konstellation immer guenstiger fuer mich und ich glaube dass ich in einigen Jahren etwas erreichen kann" ("Here the situation grows ever more favorable for me, and I believe that in a few years I can achieve something").

On July 29, while writing about his mother's deteriorating health, he records the personal dependence underlying the scientific partnership in the concise sentence "Gerty bietet mir jetzt etwas Halt" ("Gerty gives me some steadiness now"), and sends his father a check for $70, specifying that $50 is intended for his mother's food and care. An August 1 letter moves directly back into laboratory life: at the beginning of September he will travel with Dr. Pucher to Pittsburgh to present the results of their cat work before the American Chemical Society, followed by the news that Gaylord's approval of his work will permit the purchase of new apparatus for the laboratory. The archive resumes with postwar correspondence of 1946–1949 between Austria, Central Europe, and the United States, discussing family survival, health, professional contacts, travel, and scientific work after the disruption of the war years. Several letters bear circular "Österreichische Zensurstelle" stamps, preserving the administrative marks of postwar mail censorship; correspondence from the period around 1947 also records family response to Carl and Gerty's Nobel recognition. Typed family letters from Vienna in 1951 register the Coris' movement into the highest levels of American scientific recognition. One congratulates Gerty on her "Ernennung in der 'National Science Foundation'" (her appointment to the National Science Foundation), calling it an honor, while another refers to the honorary doctorate conferred on her by Yale University. The same letters continue to discuss Carl's laboratory, students, lectures, colleagues, health, and the education of the next generation.

A May 7, 1952 air letter turns an ordinary family reunion into a document of occupied Europe. Carl lays out the summer travel of the Coris' son Tom (Carl Thomas Cori) by ship and bicycle through England and Scandinavia, with reference to the Olympic Games, then proposes a family meeting in the Salzburg region. The route is explicitly shaped by occupation geography: "Aus verschiedenen Gründen ist es für uns nicht ratsam durch die rote Zone zu fahren, daher der Vorschlag uns in der U.S. Zone zu treffen" ("For various reasons it is not advisable for us to travel through the red zone, hence the proposal to meet in the U.S. Zone"). The family thus plans its vacation around the division of Austria between Allied powers. The later Vienna letters of 1953–1954, several signed "Euer getreuer Vater" ("Your faithful father"), continue the exchange of family news, health reports, scientific and academic matters, Tom's education, visits, and plans for reunion, carrying the correspondence into the elder generation's final years.

Carl and Gerty Cori arrived in American science before the discoveries that fixed their names to the Cori cycle and the catalytic conversion of glycogen. The Buffalo letters preserve the partnership at an earlier and more contingent stage, when Gerty's status could still be summarized by the title "pathologische Assistentin" and an annual salary of $2,500, while Carl was presenting animal research, acquiring laboratory equipment, and sending part of his American earnings back to support an ill parent in Europe. Their later work at Washington University in St. Louis led to the 1947 Nobel Prize, making the 1922 statement that they could finally work in the same laboratory unusually precise evidence of the beginning of a collaboration later recognized at the highest level of international science. Variable toning and fold lines, scattered edge wear and short tears, occasional corner losses and handling marks; typed and handwritten texts generally strong and legible. Overall good condition.

Item #23733

Price: $3,200.00