{"id":848,"date":"2013-10-14T08:36:10","date_gmt":"2013-10-14T08:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/towardsdolly\/?p=848"},"modified":"2013-10-11T13:52:53","modified_gmt":"2013-10-11T13:52:53","slug":"stefan-kopec-in-the-alan-greenwood-archive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/towardsdolly\/2013\/10\/14\/stefan-kopec-in-the-alan-greenwood-archive\/","title":{"rendered":"Stefan Kope\u0107 in the Alan Greenwood archive"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Stefan<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Stefan<\/a><\/p>\n

The Alan Greenwood archive contains a variety of material, from degree certificates and correspondence to copies of lectures and scientific papers. However, one of the most fascinating parts of the archive is a collection of photographs which not only contains some nineteenth-century portraits of Greenwood\u2019s ancestors, but also visually documents the work done at the Institute of Animal Genetics Poultry Research Centre from the period Greenwood was director (1947-1962), as well as some earlier photographs from the Institute of Animal Genetics, where Greenwood worked from 1923. The photographs have been mounted on around 100 pages of paper which look to have at one time been fixed inside a folder or album, and are annotated in Greenwood\u2019s hand. The photographs consist mainly of official portraits and photographs taken for publicity and press purposes, informal snaps of conferences and social events and also more personal, intimate pictures of scientists and members of their family. The first page of photographs in the collection is from the latter category, and depicts Polish biologist Stefan Kope\u0107 (1888-1941) and his daughter Maria. When I first came across these pictures whilst cataloguing, I was struck by the intimacy of the shots: Kope\u0107 sits, his spectacles lying on one side, looking frankly at the camera. The second picture shows Maria tenderly embracing her father. I thought these pictures were remarkably domestic and personal for a collection which mainly consists of pictures of scientists \u2018at work\u2019, and it piqued my interest in finding out more about Kope\u0107 and his daughter.<\/p>\n

It proved to be quite a story. Stefan Kope\u0107 was a pioneering insect endocrinologist, publishing papers in academic journals in Polish, English and German. After receiving his PhD at the Jagiellonian University in Krak\u00f3w in 1912, he joined the Pulawy Agricultural Research Station in Poland and was made director there in 1929. His most important contribution to science was his discovery of the role of the insect brain in the production of hormones, and this study laid the groundwork for what is now called neuroendocrinology. As for Kope\u0107\u2019s connection with Alan Greenwood, I was aware that they had published a joint paper, \u2018The Effects of Yolk Injections on the Plumage of an Ovariotomised Brown Leghorn Hen\u2019 (Development Genes and Evolution<\/i>, 121:1-2, 87-95) in 1929-1930, so it seemed likely that Kope\u0107 visited the Animal Breeding Research Organisation (ABRO) at some point around this time. Records in the Institute of Animal Genetics (as the department became known) collection are scanty from this period, but I was delighted to come across a message from Kope\u0107 in the Institute\u2019s visitors\u2019 book dated January 4th<\/sup> 1928, along with another photograph. Kopec writes:<\/p>\n

\"Stefan<\/a>The seven months I spent in the ABRO have been most profitable for me. I gained there some valuable methods and many important suggestions. I was very sorry to have to leave the place where I also got many good friends. Ladies and gentlemen! (both from the laboratories and poultry houses and from the office!) Please accept many thanks for all your kindness, all advice and help and be sure of my gratitude. Do not miss any opportunity to visit me in Pulawy. In the name of myself and my colleagues, of my wife and my F1-generation (\u2642 and \u2640), of my rabbits, mice, fowls and other laboratory creatures I assure you of a very warm welcome…<\/em>“<\/em><\/p>\n

The rest of the story, however, is not so positive. In 1940, Kope\u0107 was arrested and imprisoned in Poland by the Gestapo along with his daughter Maria and son Stanislaw for their involvement in a Polish underground university. In 1941, Stefan and Stanislaw were executed at Palmiry, near Warsaw, in reprisal against an action of the Polish underground army.<\/p>\n

Stefan\u2019s daughter Maria however, went on to be a distinguished radiation scientist, receiving the prestigious Maria Sk\u0142odowska-Curie Medal in 1983, while Stefan Kope\u0107 \u2018s name lives on in the annual International Conference on Anthropods the Stefan Kope\u0107 \u00a0Memorial Conference at the University of Wroclaw.<\/p>\n

Photographs like these can have enormous power in the ability to open up individual life stories. Kope\u0107’s story\u00a0demonstrates the interrelationship between different collections in the \u2018Towards Dolly\u2019 project and reflects the sometimes complex but always fascinating story of animal genetics in Edinburgh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Alan Greenwood archive contains a variety of material, from degree certificates and correspondence to copies of lectures and scientific papers. However, one of the most fascinating parts of the archive is a collection of photographs which not only contains … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2,116],"tags":[134,137,123,129,126,130,128,136,133,127,138,124,135,131,132,125],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p40Aqf-dG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/towardsdolly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/towardsdolly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/towardsdolly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/towardsdolly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/towardsdolly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/towardsdolly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":858,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/towardsdolly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions\/858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/towardsdolly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/towardsdolly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/towardsdolly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}