Washing milk bottles, Briarcliff Farms, near New York, N.Y. U.S.A
Attention New York Milk Bottle Collectors!
Hello,
I am a consultant for a forthcoming exhibition in Austria on the history of biology, based on a book I wrote a few years ago (A Guinea Pig’s History of Biology, Harvard University Press, 2007). Like the book, the exhibition is based around the various plants and animals that helped scientists understand how inheritance and genetics work.
Among the important organisms to be included in the exhibition are fruit flies (Drosophila); when these were first brought into the lab in the early C20, they were kept in half-pint milk bottles, which is why I am contacting you. Around about 1905, Professor Thomas Hunt Morgan and his students at Columbia University helped themselves to empty milk bottles from New Yorkers doorsteps. We would like to include a typical US milk bottle from this period in the exhibition and I was wondering if any of your members might have one? Arrangements for shipping, insurance, etc would all be made by the staff of the Oberösterreichische Landesmuseen in Linz, Austria, but if you would be willing to circulate this request to your membership, please ask them to contact me in the first instance.
Many thanks, Jim
Dr Jim Endersby
Senior Lecturer, Department of History, University of Sussex
* Mail: Arts Building A, Arts Road, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9RH
