This paper recovers a significant body of Julian Huxley’s early writings concerning the biology of sex determination, sex development and sexual behavior. Following the success of his studies relating to avian courtship, Huxley envisaged a more integrated approach to the study of animal behavior which would synthesize the perspectives of both field observations and experimental zoology. In this endeavor he considered sex-related questions the most pressing, although, in practice, he failed to assimilate his own ornithological observations of avian courtship with the new biology of sex determination that was developing at a rapid pace in Germany and North America. Huxley learned the latest theories of sex determination directly from Richard Goldschmidt and Thomas Hunt Morgan, largely siding with Goldschmidt’s controversial (and ill-fated) ‘theory of balance’ which catered for a high degree of sexual variation in morphology and behavior. Especially during his period as Fellow of New College and Senior Demonstrator in the Department of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at Oxford (1919-1925), the biology of sex constituted one of Huxley’s leading interests and played a major role in establishing him as one of the twentieth-century’s most famous public intellectuals and popularizers of science and eugenics. It was largely because of Huxley that, after decades of resisting Continental sexology, the medico-scientific study of sex became both respectable and popular in Britain, although the subject remained inextricably entangled with Huxley’s eugenic vision of human progress.

Contemporary models of development are the result of the encounter of different research traditions such as molecular genetics, cell biology and tissue and organ culture. While molecular genetics was a privileged focus of historical analysis, research in tissue and organ architecture did not experience the same pick of attention. The paper aims at exploring this sideline tradition in the history of developmental biology through a reconstruction of the itinerary of the developmental biologist Aron Moscona, pioneer in tissue and organ culture research. Moscona’s models of the role of cell adhesion in tissue and organ development are the result of an eclectic career spanning between diverse areas of zoology: between 1946-1950, Moscona pursued entomological research, dealing with developmental changes in the chemical composition of eggs of Bacillus libanicus. During his PhD, he made use of anatomical and histochemical methods in order to detect changes in the pancreatic cells of snakes and lizards during the reproductive cycle. Then, from the beginning of the 1950s, he analyzed histogenetic and organogenetic processes in the chick embryo through tissue and organ culture techniques. Moscona’s interest for development had an early start although the model organisms and the experimental techniques he made use of gradually changed throughout his career, bringing about or reflecting a visible change in the developmental questions he addressed. The paper records the evolution of Moscona’s scientific thought by providing a composite narrative where experimental practice, disciplinary training and cross-disciplinary influences orchestrate together to make accessible the scientist’s “investigative pathway”.

Activist Elise Ottesen-Jensen founded the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU—Riksförbundet för sexuell upplysning) in 1933; by that time she had been corresponding with American birth control activist Margaret Sanger for several years and had established a strong working relationship with Sanger. In this paper I trace the build-up of Ottesen-Jensen’s sex education work prior to the founding of RFSU. I examine three borders—geographical, ideological, and educational—to show how conversations on sex instruction that occurred in the United States during the early- to mid-1920s begin arising in Sweden at the turn of the decade and helped secure moral support for RFSU’s existence. First films traversed geographical borders, from the United States to Sweden, including the well-received film Motherhood: Life’s Greatest Miracle (1927, Moderskap). Second, films crossed ideological borders. While previously exported American sex instruction films contained messages on birth control and abortions, these newer films examined the consequences of drinking and drugs and filmmakers targeted them to younger audiences. Third, sex instruction films began to enter Swedish school systems, moving from public theaters, thus intersection the educational border. In 1928, elementary school teacher Sven Karlung deemed sex education “the most delicate subject” but argued it needed to be taught in schools through the use of film; the schoolteacher praised film as a medium for education. I contend that the years leading up to RFSU’s founding were formative for the transnational relationship of sex education and its films between the United States and Sweden.