Chapter 5, 1936-1941: University of Missouri Summary and Analysis

Lewis Stadler found McClintock a position at the University of Missouri in Columbia, pushing hard for her appointment. The Rockefeller Foundation was building a genetics center at Missouri and wanted McClintock as a colleague and the salary was a significant improvement. She was happy to accept. She wanted to blaze a trail. Her next research project involved studying how broken chromosomes 'reanneal' or come back together. Using X-Rays, she was able to split various chromosomes and see how they recombined. She began to report her work, displaying mutations new seen before, in 1938. For whatever reason, her research did not take off with her colleagues and she lost the position at Missouri. She was an outsider with the department. They did not even notify her of job inquiries concerning her. Evelyn found it hard...