Summary: We are dedicating this entire program to one story. During the 1970s, P.
Thomas Carroll read and transcribed hundreds of Charles Darwin's
personal correspondences for research purposes. Carroll shares his
story of becoming intimately familiar with the great 19th
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century
evolutionary biologist over the course of several years and 14,000
letters.
Show Notes:
P. Thomas Carroll is the executive director of the Hudson Mohawk
Industrial Gateway in Troy, N.Y. But between 1972 and 1975, to pay his
way through graduate school, he produced a reference book on the
contents of more than 700 letters by Charles Darwin that are now in the
Library of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. That job
led to his becoming the first paid employee of the Darwin
Correspondence Project in 1975.
In total there are more than 14,000 letters written by and to Charles
Darwin. And most of those letters were written in Darwin's notoriously
bad handwriting!
Historians often develop an intimate kind of relationship with the
people they are researching and Carroll is no exception. And since
Darwin did not write his letters with the idea that they would be
poured over by scholars one day, a particularly intimate portrait of
the man appeared before Carroll's eyes.
This is Carroll's story of peeking over Darwin's shoulder.
Songs:
Natalie Walker
"Pink Neon" (mp3)
from "Pink Neon"
(Dorado Records)
Buy at Rhapsody
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at mTraks Download
More On This Album
"Sound Scientist" by Bill (via Podsafe Audio)
"Charles Robert Darwin" by The Artichoke Band
Links:
P. Thomas Carroll's website | Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway | An Annotated Calendar of the Letters of Charles Darwin in the Library of the American Philosophical Society | The Darwin Correspondence Project
Call the HNN listener Comment line: (877) 659-1515.
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