Arizona State University Embryo Project Photograph Collections

In the 1970s Stanford University Embryologist Harold Heath sent a box of photographs to Frederick B. Churchill, who was a Professor in the History and Philosophy of Science Department at Indiana University. Heath was born in Indiana, he knew that Churchill was the leading historian of embryology, and he wanted his photographs to be used and therefore wanted them to be housed somewhere with an interest in the history of biology. Heath made it clear that he was donating the photographs for use by scholars and the public. At Indiana University, graduate student Jane Maienschein cataloged the collection. As Maienschein understood it, Churchill held any copyright authority on the photographs of modern biologists.

When he retired and cleaned out his office, Churchill sent those photographs to Maienschein, who now leads a graduate program of her own at Arizona State University. Today these photographs now make up the core of the Arizona State University History of Biology Photograph Collections, supplemented by digital copies of selections from the Marine Biological Laboratory Photograph Collections.

The collection also includes photographs from other sources, for which the copyright information is undocumented and unknown in most cases.