Descriptive notes

Processing-level

Begin with a brief summary of the most relevant aspects of a person’s (or family’s) life, including name, life dates, education, profession, and associated geographic locations. Follow the overview with a more detailed summary, including family and names and relationships, education, occupation, and activities. Adhere to the following guidelines: 
For individuals (the subject/creator and individuals related to her or him), record:

• the full name, title(s), married name(s), alias(es), pseudonyms, and common or popular forms of the person’s name
• the geographic places of residence of the person or family and the length of residence in each place, as well as any other place with which the person or family has a connection
• information about family relationships that have a bearing on the understanding of the person and the unit being described, including names of family members, including facts of marriage and names of children.

When describing an individual’s education, include:

• the names and locations of schools attended and dates when degrees were conferred
• information about the education of other family members (if it bears upon the education or educational decisions of the individual being described)

When describing a person’s occupation, life, and activities:

• include information about the principal occupation(s) and career or lifework of the person, or about the activities of the family
• indicate other activities important to the understanding of that person or family
• give information about significant accomplishments, achievements, awards, honors, or public recognition
• identify important relationships with other persons or organizations and indicate office(s) held

Organization of a Biography for Center Finding Aids

Paragraph 1 should be a nutshell summary, akin to the first sentence of what goes into the 545 of the MARC record:

Examples: 

• Alexander D. Langmuir (1910-1993), A.B., 1931, Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts; M.D., 1935, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; M.P.H., 1940, Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, was Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard Medical School from 1970 to 1977 and chief epidemiologist for the Epidemiology Branch of the Public Health Service of the National Communicable Disease Center (later the Centers for Disease Control, or CDC) from 1949 to 1970.
• Robert Stuart Weiss (born 1925), B.A., 1949, State University of New York at Buffalo; M.A., 1952, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Ph.D., 1954, University of Michigan, is both a Senior Fellow in the Gerontology Institute and Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and a Lecturer in Sociology in the Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston. Weiss's area of specialization is the social and emotional impact of relational loss and change expressed in bereavement, loneliness, and social isolation.

Paragraph 2 should contain the fuller form of the biography: place of birth, parent’s names, relevant family history, education, and career-related information.

Examples: 

• Alexander Duncan Langmuir was born in Santa Monica, California in 1910. Greatly influenced by his uncle, Irving Langmuir, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1932, he went into the medical field. He received an A.B. from Harvard College in 1931, an M.D. from Cornell University Medical College in 1935, and his M.P.H. from John Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health in 1940. From 1942 to 1946, Langmuir worked for the New York State Health Department in Albany, serving as the Deputy Commissioner of Health for Westchester County. During World War II, he was a member of the Army’s Commission on Acute Respiratory Diseases at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. After the war, Langmuir served as an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore (1946 to 1949) and a Clinical Professor of Preventive Medicine and Community Health at Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta (1950 to 1970). During this time, Langmuir also served as the chief epidemiologist for the National Communicable Disease Center. During his directorship, Langmuir defined disease surveillance, establishing a model that was accepted globally, and in 1961, he implemented the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of the CDC to disseminate public health data and research results.
• Thomas Berry Brazelton was born on ­­­­­­­­­­May 10, 1918 in Waco, Texas to Thomas Berry Brazelton and Pauline (Battle) Brazelton. He attended Princeton University, receiving an A.B. in 1940 and earned an M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1943. Brazelton completed an internship at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City and served in the United States Naval Reserve from 1944 to 1945, after which he became a resident at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. (1945-1957) , a pediatrics resident at Children’s Hospital (1947-1948), a training fellow in child psychiatry at the James Jackson Putnam Children’s Center, Roxbury, Massachusetts (1947 to 1951), and a research fellow in child psychiatry at Harvard Medical School (1948 to 1950. (Continues)

Paragraph 3 should contain a summary of professional activities, accomplishments, and awards. This can include important publications, collaborations, research interests, etc.

Examples: 

• Langmuir is widely known for his work on developing surveillance techniques for monitoring and controlling disease, resulting in the creation of the Epidemiological Intelligence Service in 1951. In 1952, he convened the first Conference of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. Langmuir wrote extensively on all phases of epidemiology on a global basis and was recognized internationally as a leading contributor in epidemiology. He contributed to the radiation studies that followed the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the global smallpox eradication program. In later years, he criticized the CDC’s tracking of the spread of AIDS. During his lifetime, he received awards from the Charles A. Dana Foundation for pioneering achievements in public health, the American Public Health Association, and the Royal Society of Medicine in England. Langmuir became a Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard Medical School in 1970, where he remained until 1977. He served as a visiting professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health from 1988 until his death in 1993.
• Brazelton continued to work on children’s issues in the 1980s, accompanying U.S. Representative Patricia (Pat) Schroeder (Democrat, Colorado) on a nationwide tour to draw attention to family concerns, and serving as a member of the National Commission on Children (1988-1991). In 1989, Brazelton wrote a cover story for the New York Times Magazine entitled, “Why Is America Failing Its Children?” in which he detailed the plight of disadvantaged children. In the 1990s and 2000s, Brazelton continued to teach medical students and residents, appear on television programs, lecture widely, and, in 1993, he helped lobby for passage of the Family Leave Act.
• During the course of his career, Brazelton has authored over 200 articles and chapters, as well as over thirty books, including Infants and Mothers: Individual Differences in Development (1969), Toddlers and Parents: A Declaration of Independence (1974), Doctor and Child (1976), On Becoming a Family (1981), What Every Baby Knows (1987), The Earliest Relationship (1990), Touchpoints: Your Child’s Emotional and Behavioral Development (1993), and Touchpoints: Three to Six (2001). From 1984 to 1995, Brazelton hosted the television program “What Every Baby Knows,” for which he won an Emmy in 1994, and authored monthly columns in Redbook and Family Circle, as well as a weekly newspaper column distributed by the New York Times Syndication Sales Corporation.

Paragraph 4 should contain personal information: marriages, divorces, children, illnesses, date of death, cause of death, place of death, etc.

Examples: 

• Langmuir married Sarah Ann Harper (died 1969) in 1940 and had five children: Ann Ruggles (born 1941); Paul Harper (born 1942); Susan Davis (born 1945); Lynn Adams (born 1951); and Jane Adams (born 1954). In 1970, he married Leona Baumgartner (1902-1991), the first woman to serve as Commissioner of Health of New York City. Langmuir died of kidney cancer in 1993 in Baltimore, Maryland.
• Brazelton married Christina Lowell in 1949. They have four children, Catherine, Pauline, Christina, and Thomas.

Complete Biography Example:

Lauriston Sale Taylor (1902-2004), A.B., 1926, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, was a radiation physicist, founder and President of the United States Advisory Committee on X-Ray and Radium Protection (later the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements), and Associate Director of the National Bureau of Standards from 1962 to 1965. His research focused on ionizing radiation and radiation protection standards. Taylor developed the guarded field standard ionization chamber and studied radiation measurement and protection, ionization of liquids, and variable oscillators.

Lauriston Sale Taylor was born on 1 June 1902 in Brooklyn, New York to Charles Taylor and Nancy Bell Sale and grew up in Maplewood, New Jersey. At a young age, Taylor became interested in physics and vacuum x-ray tubes. Taylor later attended the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey, from 1920 to 1922 before transferring to Cornell University to study physics, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1926. After finishing his undergraduate degree, Taylor stayed at Cornell University, completing all doctorate requirements except for the necessary residency. In 1927, Taylor accepted a one year position to help organize an x-ray research program at the National Bureau of Standards in Gaithersburg, Maryland (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology). While at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), Taylor held several positions, including Chief of Atomic and Radiation Physics, Chief of the Radiation Physics Division, and eventually, Associate Director of the National Bureau of Standards until his retirement in 1965. During several leaves of absence from the NBS, Taylor helped organize the Biophysics Branch of the Atomic Energy Commission and formed the Operations Research Program for the United States Army during World War II, eventually becoming the director of the Operations Research Division of the United States Air Command. For his service, he was awarded the Bronze Star and the Medal of Freedom.

After leaving the NBS, Taylor accepted a position at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), Washington, D.C., as Special Assistant to the President and Executive Director of the Academy’s Advisory Committee to the Office of Emergency Preparedness, where he remained until 1972. In addition to his careers at the NBS and NAS, Taylor was the founder and President of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP), for which he served as President of from 1929 until his retirement from the organization in 1977.

Taylor is widely known for helping establish the first national standard for x-ray exposure and for his contributions to radiation protection guidelines. While at the NBS, Taylor developed the first guarded-field free-air ionization chamber which he used to compare international x-ray standards. Taylor was also the Secretary of the International Commission on Radiological Protection from 1937 to 1950, as well as the Secretary (1934-1950) and Chairman (1953-1969) of the International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements.

During the course of his career, Taylor authored over 160 scientific papers and wrote or contributed to twenty books, including Organization for Radiation Protection: The Operations of the ICRP and NCRP, 1928-1974 (published 1979). He also collaborated with the Bureau of Radiological Health to produce the videotape series, Vignettes of Early Radiation Workers. In his later years, Taylor served as a consultant and testified as an expert witness in several court cases related to radiation exposure.

Lauriston Taylor married Azulah Walker Taylor (died 1972) in 1925. They had two sons: Lauriston S. Taylor, Jr. and Nelson Taylor. In 1973, Taylor married Robena Harper Taylor, mother of Christine O’Shiell, Carolyn Arthur, Cynthia Nagle, and Constance Taylor.