Railway Express, 1952-1957

Gordon’s correspondence highlights his research and publication efforts, his interest in the countries where he collected Xiphophorus stock, and his close relationships with both his students and with many of the leading ichthyologists of his time. Especially prominent is evidence of Gordon’s ties to the Ichthyology Departments of the University of Michigan’s Museum of Zoology [UMMZ], where he had performed a post-doctoral fellowship, and to the American Museum of Natural History [AMNH]. UMMZ Curators of Fishes Carl L. Hubbs (who later moved to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at University of California San Diego) and Reeve M. Bailey are frequent correspondents, as is their colleague (and Hubbs’s son-in-law) Robert Rush Miller. Miller and Hubbs, working with W. L. Minkley of the University of Arizona, named the northern platyfish Xiphophorus gordoni in Gordon’s honor after his death.

Gordon’s correspondence with those he mentored is notable for the glimpses it provides into the conditions of wartime service: James Atz’s file includes letters from Atz’s time at Fort Bragg, N.C., during the Second World War, and the files of Donn Rosen and William Hildeman both include letters dating from their Korean War service. Gordon’s Central America and Mexico correspondence pertains to his collecting expeditions and also documents Gordon’s other interests in the area, especially eastern Mexico and British Honduras (modern day Belize). These include his efforts to export mahogany and his friendship with Reverend Gerald Fairweather and his son, Compton Fairweather, who assisted Gordon with his collection efforts and would go on to become influential in Belizean politics.