A Model Collaborative Couple in Genetics: Anna Rachel Whiting and Phineas Westcott Whiting’s Study of Sex Determination in Habrobracon

Abstract

Anna Rachel Young Whiting (1892–1981) and Phineas Westcott Whiting (1887–1978) formed a collaborative partnership built on the study of a single organism that was notable among early twentieth-century geneticists. They met and fell in love during the summer of 1915, when both were working at the Marine Biological Station at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. She was a third-year undergraduate student at Smith College studying botany and he was a graduate student in cytogenetics at the University of Pennsylvania. Sharing a passion for science and leftist politics (he was a self-proclaimed Bolshevik) they married in 1918 and 3 years later moved to Iowa City, where he took up a faculty position in eugenics at the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station and she did doctoral work in genetics at the University of Iowa, obtaining a Ph.D. in 1925. Until the end of their careers spanning over five decades, the two actively conducted research, both jointly and independently, on the parasitic wasp Habrobracon. While sharing work connected with the genetics and cytology of sex determination, they investigated specialized topics independently – Anna Rachel the impact of X-ray-induced mutation and Phineas the genetics behind the production of irregular sexual morphs. At a time when women (as well as committed socialists) found it difficult to secure steady academic employment in science, Anna Rachel and Phineas developed a mutually-supportive career strategy that enabled both of them to continue to pursue research, even when one of them was unemployed. Their marriage was thus as much a joint scientific enterprise as a companionable interpersonal relationship.