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Guide to the Lauren R. Donaldson Papers
1906-1994

Lauren R. Donaldson in Japan, 1966. Photographer unknown. Special Collections, University of Washington Libraries

Biographical Note

Lauren R. Donaldson was a professor of fisheries and director of the Applied Fisheries Laboratory and its successors at the University of Washington. Donaldson was born near Tracy, Minnesota in 1903 and received his B.A. degree in 1926 from Intermountain Union College in Helena, Montana. After arriving in Seattle in 1930, he earned his M.S. degree (1931) and Ph.D. degree (1939) in Fisheries at the University of Washington. Donaldson joined the University of Washington faculty in 1932 as an assistant instructor and launched a program to improve the size, growth rate, and spawning capacity of rainbow trout. Donaldson was well-known for his selective breeding experiments that produced five species of hatchery-raised salmon and a super-strain of rainbow trout, known as the Donaldson trout, which came to be raised world-wide. He also secured funding for a hatchery on the campus and, through that project, demonstrated that salmon can be reared to return to their point of release, establishing a salmon run which brings 5,000 to 7,000 fish back to the University campus each year.

Another significant aspect of Donaldson's career was his involvement in radiobiological studies in both field and laboratory settings between 1946 and 1973. In 1943, the Applied Fisheries Laboratory was established at the University of Washington under the authority of the Manhattan District of the Army Corps of Engineers. The initial purpose of the laboratory was to study the effects of radiation on aquatic organisms. Lauren Donaldson was chosen to direct the laboratory, and did so until 1958 when he headed its successor, the Laboratory of Radiation Biology (renamed the Laboratory of Radiation Ecology in 1966).

In 1946, Donaldson, his Applied Fisheries Laboratory colleague Arthur D. Welander, and Washington State Game Department biologist Clarence F. Pautzke, were selected to serve as radiation monitors for Operation Crossroads, the first atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. They also performed sampling and analysis of specimens as part of the unofficial "Division of Radiobiology" that formed within the expedition's Radiological Safety Section in response to growing interest, on the part of the scientists present, in the disposition of radioactive material through biological systems. Altogether the Bikini and Eniwetok Atolls were the subject of seven separate series of atmospheric nuclear bomb tests between 1946 and 1958, and Donaldson planned or led the radiobiological activities for surveys and resurveys of Bikini and Eniwetok in 1947, 1948 (Operation Sandstone), 1949, 1952 (Operation Ivy, the first hydrogen bomb test), 1954 (Operation Castle), 1956 and 1964 to determine the effects of radiation on the islands' flora and fauna, and to assess the extent of recovery from exposure with the passage of time. In June 1954, some months after the crew of the Japanese fishing vessel Fukuryu Maru were exposed to radioactive fallout from the Operation Castle tests at Bikini, Donaldson participated in a joint Japanese-American scientific conference, which permitted American scientists to share their knowledge of radiation and its effects with their Japanese counterparts, significantly easing tensions arising from the incident.

Another significant aspect of the Applied Fisheries Laboratory's work with the Atomic Energy Commission was the Fern Lake Mineral Metabolism Program, which examined, through the use of radioactively tagged minerals, the absorption of nutrients by the relatively impoverished ecosystem of Fern Lake in Kitsap County, Washington. Donaldson also served as consultant and observer for tests in Nevada in the spring of 1951, acted as consultant to the Atomic Energy Commission on the Hanford Engineering Works, and drafted a plan for the biological study of the area designated for Project Chariot (a never-implemented plan to create a harbor on the coast of northwest Alaska).

Donaldson lent his expertise to the planning of the Seattle Aquarium, serving on the Aquarium Committee of the Washington Oceanographic Commission.

Donaldson retired from the faculty in 1973; however, he continued to work on campus as professor emeritus, meeting with researchers, faculty, and students. Professor Donaldson received numerous awards, including the Shinkishi Hatai Medal from the Japanese government in 1975 and the University of Washington's Alumnus Summa Laude Dignatus award in 1987. He died on November 22, 1998.

Scope and Content

The particular strength of the Donaldon papers is the extensive collection of project files on radiation projects carried out in the University of Washington's Applied Fisheries Laboratory, as well as logbooks, reports, notes, photo albums, scrapbooks and other materials from the radiological resurveys of Bikini Atoll and nearby islands after atomic and hydrogen bomb tests in the 1940s and 1950s. Project files on other trout and salmon research are also present. Correspondence makes up approximately one third of the accession and includes both intradepartmental correspondence within the University of Washington College of Fisheries and correspondence with Donaldson's colleagues outside the University. Also included are Donaldson's papers from his service on the Washington State Oceanographic Commission, particularly concerning planning for the Seattle Aquarium. The papers also contain a substantial number of Donaldson's speeches and writings, his Shinkishi Hatai Medal as well as award plaques and commemorative pins and coins.

Major correspondents include

• Atkinson, Clinton E.
• Chapman, Wilbert McLeod, 1910-1970
• Haydon, John M. (John Morse), 1920-
• Hines, Neal O.
• Seymour, Allyn Henry, 1913-
• American Fisheries Society
• Seattle Aquarium
• United States Atomic Energy Commission, Division of Biology and Medicine
• United States Fish and Wildlife Service
• United States Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife
• United States Fish and Wildlife Service Western Fish Nutrition Laboratory
• Washington (State) Department of Fisheries
• Washington (State) Department of Game

Arrangement

Arranged into:

Personal papers, 1906-1994

Eighteen subgroups,1931-1994

Physical/Technical Access

Listening equipment necesary for reel-to-reel tape and viewing equipment necessary for film. Contact Special Collections for details

Restrictions on Access

Open to all users, but access to portions of the papers restricted. Contact repository for details.

Restrictions on Use

Creator's literary rights transferred to the University of Washington Libraries.

Preferred Citation

Lauren R. Donaldson papers, Special Collections Division, University of Washington Libraries.

Acquisition Info

Source: Lauren R. Donaldson, 1981-1988; Jack Donaldson, 1999; Robert Goff, 2004.

Processing Info

Processed by Eric Anderson and Janet Polata in 2005-2008.

Separated Material

Five Metskers and United States Geological Survey maps were transferred to the University of Washington Libraries Map Collection January 13, 2006.

Bibliography

Neal O. Hines. Proving Ground: An Account of Radiobiological Studies in the Pacific, 1946-1961. (Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1962).

Neal O. Hines. Fish of Rare Breeding: Salmon and Trout of the Donaldson Strain. (Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution Press, 1976).

Robert R. Stickney. Flagship: A History of Fisheries at the University of Washington. (Dubuque, Iowa, Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1989).

Related Material

University of Washington Laboratory of Radiation Biology Records, Accession #00-065.

University of Washington Laboratory of Radiation Ecology Records, Accession #90-60

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