Albert F. Blakeslee Papers

Albert Francis Blakeslee was born in Geneseo, New York, in 1874 the son of Francis Durbin Blakeslee and Augusta Miranda Hubbard Blakeslee. He attended East Greenwich Academy (RI) before entering Wesleyan University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1896. Before his employment at Harvard University as an teaching fellow of botany in 1900 and an instructor at Radcliffe College, Blakeslee taught science at the Montpelier Seminary (VT) and East Greenwich Academy (RI). He received his Ph.D. in 1904 from Harvard University and from 1904-1906 studied Mucors in Germany with a research grant from the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Returning from Germany, Blakeslee resumed his positions at Harvard and Radcliffe before relocating to Storrs, Connecticut, as professor of botany at Connecticut Agricultural College in 1907. Before his departure in 1915, Blakeslee title changed to include genetics due to his successful work with the Storrs Agricultural Experiment Station. In the fall of 1915, Blakeslee left C.A.C. to become an investigator of plant genetics at the Department of Genetics of the Carnegie Institute of Washington in its Cold Spring Harbor (Long Island) facility. At Cold Spring Harbor, Blakeslee continued his studies as well as serving as Assistant Director from 1923-1936 and Director from 1936 until his retirement in 1941.

After his retirement, Blakeslee accepted the appointment as the William Allan Neilson research Professor of Botany at Smith College in 1942. While at Smith, Blakeslee continued to be a leader in the profession as well as on campus, establishing the Smith College Genetics Experiment Station, publishing, teaching and supervising the graduate work of nine students.

Albert Blakeslee died November 16, 1954, in Northampton, Massachusetts.