Elwood V. Jensen Collection

Collection

Identifier: WC-16

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

Collection contains awards, photographs, medical journals, newspaper articles, and personal correspondence. Where noted in the below inventory, some items, due to their size, have been moved to oversize locations. Series I consists of three sub-series: Articles, Publications and Research, and Awards. This includes over one hundred published articles about Dr. Jensen and his extensive cancer research, as well as several medical journals he collected throughout the 1970’s. Subseries IA consists of articles published about Jensen’s professional career and his findings on breast cancer receptors. Subseries IB contains Dr. Jensen’s higher education material, such as journals and articles published through the University of Chicago, as well as correspondence from peers. Subseries IC consists of awards and certificates Dr. Jensen received throughout his professional career including the Prix Russel, General Motors and the golden plate awards. Series II Personal, consists of materials Dr. Jensen collected or created throughout his life from vacations, boy scouts, mountain climbing, and cards and drawings from his family. Subseries IIA, Family/Private Life consists of personal materials like those related to climbing the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps, and his time in the Quadrangle club. Subseries IIB Scrapbooks contains two scrapbooks, assumedly constructed by his first wife Mary and their two children Karen and Thomas. This series also contains several holiday cards from loved ones. Series III and subsequent subseries A, B, and C consist of numerous photos and negatives from his professional and personal life and negatives of those images.

Dates

Majority of material found within 1930-2009

Conditions Governing Access

There are no restrictions in accessing material in this collection

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright restrictions may apply. Permission to publish, quote or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder.

Biographical / Historical

Elwood Vernon Jensen was born in Fargo, North Dakota, in 1920. He was pre-schooled by his mother, a teacher, and entered grade school in Ohio, where he grew up and later matriculated at Wittenberg College. He received his doctorate degree in organic chemistry from The University of Chicago in 1944. He entered the Ben May Laboratory at the University of Chicago three years later as an Assistant Professor, and a member of the research team in 1951. It was this same laboratory in which he later discovered estrogen receptors’ and role they play in breast cancer.

He took a leave of absence to serve as a Research Director for the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Zurich, Switzerland. .He received his doctorate in organic chemistry at the University of Chicago in 1944. Jensen entered the faculty as an Assistant Professor in the Ben May Laboratories at University of Chicago in 1947 and later did a sabbatical at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. While in Switzerland, he climbed the Swiss face of the Matterhorn—one of the highest peaks in the Alps—even though he had no mountaineering experience. In 1951, Jensen returned to the Ben May Laboratories and became Director there in 1969.

After the death of his first wife, Mary Collette, in 1982, he took a leave of absence to serve as a Research Director for the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Zurich, Switzerland. After retirement from Chicago in 1990, Jensen was Scholar-in-Residence at Cornell Medical College, Alexander von Humboldt visiting professor at the University of Hamburg, and Nobel visiting professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm before his appointment at the University of Cincinnati in 2002 as the Distinguished University Professor, George and Elizabeth Wile Chair in Cancer Research. He finished his career at the University of Cincinnati (UC) where he worked from 2002 until approximately a year before his death. At UC, he performed his late and final scientific work. Dr. Jensen passed away on December 16, 2012, at the age of 92.

Extent

8 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

Elwood Jensen received his doctorate degree in organic chemistry from The University of Chicago in 1944. He entered the Ben May Laboratory at the University of Chicago three years later as an Assistant Professor, and a member of the research team in 1951. It was this same laboratory in which he later discovered estrogen receptors’ and role they play in breast cancer. He took a leave of absence to serve as a Research Director for the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Zurich, Switzerland. He finished his career at the University of Cincinnati where he worked from 2002 until approximately a year before his death in 2012.

Arrangement

This collection is arranged into three series and seven sub-series:

Series I: Professional Career Subseries IA: Articles Subseries IB: Publications/ Research Subseries IC: Awards Series II: Personal Subseries IIA: Family/Private life Subseries IIB: Scrapbooks Series III: Photos Subseries IIIA: Professional Subseries IIIB: Personal Subseries IIIC: Negatives