Abbie Lathrop (1868-1918) Papers
Title: The Abbie Lathrop Collection.
Originator: Abbie E.C. Lathrop, 1868-1918.
Dates: 1907-1918.
Accession Number & Location: Manuscript boxes # 9-11; Oversize folder, Box 6B, F8; .5 cu.ft.
Arrangement: In one series. The collection is very fragile, with numerous small pieces of paper clipped onto other sheets.
Biography: Abbie Lathrop was born in Illinois in 1868. Her parents were school teachers from Granby, Massachusetts, the town she returned to in 1900 when she gave up teaching and began raising animals for sale as pets. Her business expandly rapidly as she began to receive orders from research laboratories across the country, including nearby Bussey Laboratory at Harvard University. Her concern about the occurance of mouse tumors brought her into contact with Leo Loeb of the University of Pennsylvania. They jointly produced ten papers on the subject of tumors. Lathrop died of complications from pernicious anemia at the age of 50 in 1918. (See biographical references in Origins of Inbred Mice , Biology of the Laboratory Mouse , and an article by Shimkin in Cancer Research. )
Scope and Content: The majority of the collection consists of nineteen notebooks containing mouse breeding records from 1907-1918. A thirteen page manuscript entitled “Comments” reveals Lathrop’s observations on various breeds; and correspondence to Jas. B. Murphy in 1915 contains a list of her breeding stock at that time. There are reprints of two of the articles Lathrop published with Leo Loeb in 1913. One hand-writtten letter to Miss Lathrop, 1915 and unsigned, may be assumed to be from Loeb.
Inventory:
Box 9: Folders 1-10,
F1- Correspondence with Jas. B. Murphy, Nov. 26,1915.
F2- “Comments” (with index), and other papers, n.d.
F3- “The Influence of Pregnancies On the Incidence of Cancer in Mice”; “The Incidence of Cancer in Various Strains of Mice”; A.E.C. Lathrop and Leo Loeb. Proceedings of The Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, Vol.XI., No. 1, Oct.1913. (reprints)
F4- Notebook Number One: “Never Bred, Eng + Cream Yellow Room No.4444., Strains of Short Duration, E S + Silver + 10, Old Spotted.”
F5- Notebook II: “No.8, 8 1/2, 100. 102 or 103, 103 also 177, 102.”
F6- Notebook III: “Carter, German + Carter, German + 8.”
F7- Notebook No. IV: “European, European + 8-5th, Hyb F1 + 8 1/2 4th, Waltzer + 8, Old record.”
F8- Notebook V: “217, Silver, Silver fawn, 437, 437 + Sond, 869, 1208 -(869 F2), 881a, 869a (869a F2 + F1), 661, 1195.”
F9- Notebook VI: “Cream -1179, Cream X, German, German + 6-4th, Descendents of 108, 1179.”
F10- Notebook VII: “101, (101 + 102) = 415 - Germ + 415, 101 + 103, Mrch Wrld + 101, Europ hy + 101, 121 + Cream. 146, Eng + German, 143, 846 + English, 846 + Nov 3rd.” Also, seven 4” x 6” notecards.
Box 10: Folders 1-9.
F1- Notebook VIII: “London, London + European Hy 3, 8 1/2 + 328.”
F2- Notebook IX: “198 + Ger Hyb F - 4, 888 + Ger, 240 + Cream, Uncertain, Heitler Ger.”
F3- Notebook X: “Nov 3rd, Silver + 10, Cream + 10, Nov 8th, 8 1/2 + 10, (8 1/2 + 10) + 10, 103 + 10, European /Marlboro, European + Indiana.”
F4- Notebook XI: “1031, (Cream + Eng) Oct/13 Yellow, Black Cream + White Engllish, White Cream + White English”
F5- Notebook XIII: “London + Silver, London + Cream, Silver + English”
F6- Notebook XIV: “344, 344 + Black Cream, 344 + Cream, 344 + 8 1/2 6th, 344 + 146, 344 + German”
F7- Notebook XVI: “198 + European, Eng + Europ Hyb, 482 + 392, 693 + Cream, 693 + 773, E,S, + Y. Cream, 592”
F8- Notebook XVII: “Waltzer Hybrids, 3/4 Eng. Vermont Wild + Eng., 1158”
F9- Notebook XVIII: “Red + Cream, (198 + Ger Hyb4) + Cream, (198 + Ger Hyb4)2 + Cream, (198 + Ger Hyb4)F3 + Cream, black Cream + (198 + Ger Hyb4)F2 “
Box 11: Folders 1-4.
F1- Notebook XIX: “(Cream + 198 + Ger hyb4), Cream + European 2 1/2, European F7 + Cream, 428”
F2- Folders: “No 1166”; “No 415 = (101 + 103)F2, 789 = 415F2, 1167 = 415F5, German + 415”
F3- Notebooks-2 (no numbers) : Records from 1918.
F4- Notes describing the history of mouse families.
F11- Clipping form Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, 1968.
Box 6B: Oversize.
F8- Hand-written letter, 2pp. unsigned, n.d.
Processed and written by Martha Harmon
May 1996.