Claire Imredy Schiller Lashley Papers

Collection

Identifier: MS Group 090

Staff Only

Scope and Content

The collection consists primarily of correspondence received by Claire Lashley. Much of the correspondence dates from her first two years in the United States and letters from her sister, Magdi, figure prominently. Of note are the materials related to the publication of Instinctive Behavior, including letters and manuscripts of Niko Tinbergen, Karl Lashley, and Konrad Lorenz, and the correspondence with Heinrich Kluver, a close friend and associate of the Lashleys. Also of interest are letters from colleagues of Karl Lashley that reflect on his life and work.

Dates

Creation: 1939-1984
Creation: Majority of material found within 1947-1958

Creator

Lashley, Claire Imredy Schiller, 1912-1988. (Person)

Access

The collection is open for research.

Biographical/Historical Note

Born Klara Imredy on December 30, 1912 in Budapest, Hungary. Her father, Kalman Imredy, was an official in the Hungarian State Railroads and served as its president from 1942 to 1944. Klara Imredy received her baccalaureate from Petrus Pazmany University in 1932 and studied English Literature for a year in Kings College, Univer-sity of London. She returned to Pazmany in 1934 and studied psychology. She received her doctorate in 1946.

In 1940, she married a professor of psychology at Pazmany, Paul Harkai Schiller. They were married for ten years and had a daughter, Christina. In 1947, the Schillers moved to the United States. In 1948, Paul Schiller took a position at the Yerkes Laboratories of Primate Biology in Orange Park, Florida. He was killed the next year in a skiing accident. Following her husband's death, Claire Schiller taught history and languages at the Bartram School in Jacksonville, Florida. She retired in 1981.

In collaboration with Karl Lashley, head of the Yerkes Laboratories when Paul Schiller was employed there, Claire Schiller edited and translated a collection of articles entitled Instinctive Behavior. Published in 1957, Instinctive Behavior introduced the new field of ethology to many American psychologists and zoologists. That same year, Schiller and Lashley married. The marriage, however, was brief as Karl Lashley died in August 1958.