Research: Topics: Health Care: Preliminary Guide to Mental Health Documentary Sources in NY
Preliminary Guide to Mental Health Documentary Sources in New York State
Historical Records Repositories in Other States
Collections located in a preliminary search of the Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN) and the Online Cataloging Library Center (OCLC).
AMERCIAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY LIBRARY
105 South Fifth Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106
Davenport, Charles Benedict, 1866-1944. Papers, 1874-1944. ca. 45,000 items (43 linear ft.).
Charles B. Davenport was a biologist and director of the Department of Genetics at the Carnegie Institution of Washington (1904-1934). This collection contains extensive correspondence, lectures (3 boxes), diaries (1878-1942), student notebooks, and family correspondence (1893-1942, 23 folders).
This is a rich collection focusing on biology, genetics (animal and plant), and particularly on the development of eugenics in the United States. Davenport was in the forefront of the eugenics movement from his position as director of the Department of Genetics at the Carnegie Institution of Washington at Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. The impact of eugenics on American society, and elsewhere in the world, is extensively documented in his letters to individuals, and with the societies and organizations he assisted or corresponded with, such as the American Breeders' Association, American Eugenics Society, American Society of Nautralists, Committee on a Study of the American Negro, Galton Society (see also the extensive correpondence with William K. Gregory), Eugenics Society (see Mrs. Sybil Gotto correspondence), International Congress of Eugenics, International Federation of Eugenic Organizations, National Committee for Mental Hygiene, National Committee on Prisons and Prison Labor, and the Pan-American Conference on Eugenics and Homiculture. There is also correspondence and papers relating to the Station for Experimental Evolution and the Eugenics Record Office at the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
There are miscellaneous volumes and papers as well, such as the "Harvard Papers," written by Davenport's students, W. B. Cannon and Herbert S. Jennings. There is also a substantial series relating to a long-range study carried out at Letchworth Village, Thiles, New York (under New York State's Department of Mental Hygiene).
Presented by the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1965. Table of contents (28 p.) available in the repository.
AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION
Washington, DC
National Assembly on Mental Health Education (1958 : Ithaca, N.Y.) Records, 1956-1961. 0.5 linear ft.
Held under the auspices of the American Psychiatric Association. Correspondence, reports, lists, pre-meeting statements, working papers, and other records relating to the assembly.
Acquired through the efforts of Robert L. Robinson. Finding aid published in: National Inventory of Documentary Sources in the United States, microfiche 4.38.71.
Pilgrim, Charles Winfield, 1855-1934. Papers, 1906-1909. 00.25 linear ft.
Psychiatrist, of New York. Correspondence from Dr. Pilgrim's term as secretary of the American Psychiatric Association chiefly relating to dues payments, new memberships, and meeting arrangements.
Finding aid published in: National Inventory of Documentary Sources in the United States, microfiche 4.38.99.
Shoenfeld, Dudley D. (Dudley David), 1893-1974. Papers, 1926-1958. 0.5 linear ft.
Psychiatrist, of New York, N.Y. Papers relating to Shoenfeld's involvement with the New York City Mayor's Commission on Marijuana and other substance abuse and juvenile delinquency issues. Includes material relating to the New York Academy of Medicine Commission on Medical Jurisprudence and a ms. psychiatric study of the Lindbergh kidnapping case.
Gift of Dr. Shoenfeld's family, 1974. Finding aid published in: National Inventory of Documentary Sources in the United States, microfiche 4.38.100.
COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF PHILADELPHIA
Historical Collections of the Library, 19 South 22nd Street, Philadelphia,
PA 19103
Caldwell, George O. (George Otis), 1859 or 60-1905. Papers, 1884-1894. 1 v. (232 p.) and 9 items (0.1 linear ft.)
One volume of George O. Caldwell's student notes, 1884-1885, on surgical lectures of J. Williston Wright in the Medical Dept. of the University of the City of New York, with notes on materia medica and an 1887 hospital formulary, probably used at Female Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island, N.Y. Also includes nine letters, 1891-1894, from Caldwell to his fiancee, Annie C. Roche, written from the New York City Asylum for the Insane at Central Islip; letters concern the asylum, Caldwell's experiences on staff, treatment of insane patients, and personal matters.
George O. Caldwell, Scranton, Pa., physician, was born in 1859 or 1860 and was a native of Nashua, N.H. He received an M.D. from the University of the City of New York in 1886 and was on the staff of the New York City Asylum for the Insane at Central Islip during the early 1890s. By 1900, he had opened a medical practice in Scranton. George O. Caldwell died on 18 Nov. 1905.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, RADCLIFFE INSTITUTE FOR
ADVANCED STUDY, SCHLESINGER LIBRARY
Cambridge, MA
Glatzer, Henriette T., 1906- . Papers, 1908-1997 (inclusive). 2.5 linear ft.
Notes: The first woman and first psychologist to be elected president of the American Group Psychotherapy Association, Henriette T. Glatzer introduced group therapy to adolescents' and mothers' groups at a time (1939-1940) when this therapeutic approach was not yet well established. She was also a pioneer in working with transference and countertransference in group therapy. An assistant clinical professor at Einstein College of Medicine (1971-1977), she was a training analyst and senior supervisor at the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health in New York City.
Collection includes correspondence, reprints of her articles, thesis, papers, case notes, speeches, and photographs.
Gift of Henriette T. Glatzer, 1997. Case notes are closed until Jan. 1, 2026. Unpublished finding aid; most Schlesinger Library finding aids are also available in the National Inventory of Documentary Sources in the United States (Chadwyck-Healey, 1984- ). Electronic finding aid available: http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/advancedsearch?_collection=oasis.
Kidder family. Papers of the Kidder-Hayes family, 1931-1945 (inclusive). 0.75 linear ft.
Margaret Kidder was one of three children born to Emily Fielder (Bliss) and William Magee Kidder, a Wall Street broker. She graduated from Miss Porter's School in 1916, and in 1934 married Alexander Hayes, who was trained as a mechanical engineer at Cornell (1914) and later worked on Wall Street. The couple lived in New York City and had one daughter. They were separated in the 1940s. Margaret K. Hayes was hospitalized for mental illness during this period.
Collection consists of correspondence between Kidder and Hayes, 1931-1945. Gift of Sarnia Hayes Hoyt, 1994. Unprocessed but available for research
Vocational Adjustment Bureau. Records, 1919-1953 (inclusive). 1 linear ft.
The Vocational Adjustment Bureau (or Vocational Adjustment Bureau for Girls) began in 1919 as the Committee on Vocational Guidance and Employment, a part of Jewish Big Sisters. By 1922 the demand for guidance and placement services had grown so much that the committee was reorganized into VAB, a city-wide, non-sectarian organization under the direction of Blanche Ittleson (1875-1975).
Among its purposes were: "to conduct investigations into vocational opportunities for sub-normal and maladjusted girls; [and] to conduct a placement bureau for them." VAB provided training workshops, employment in its own workshops, placement services, and psychological and vocational tests.
By the late 1920s VAB had a full-time psychologist as director; merchndise produced in the workshops was sold in department stores. In 1936 it proposed an experiment "to educate teachers in mental hygiene practices." By 1941 the workshops had closed; by the fall of 1942 VAB was no longer working with female clients but concentrated on vocational rehabilitation for men "rejected by and discharged from the armed forces because of mental and nervous disabilities." This project continuted under the supervision of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene (NCMH); rehabilitation of veterans was transferred to other agencies by the fall of 1944. Joint minutes of VAB and NCMH continue through 1949; the last meeting of VAB was probably held in January 1951.
Collection contains administrative records; correspondence; studies, reports, and printed material about VAB's work by staff and graduate students; studies and reprints on related mental hygiene and vocational education issues; and miscellaneous reprints, clippings, and photographs.
The bulk of the records is in Series II and consists of correspondence, studies, and printed material documenting VAB's activities, from descriptions of girls' circumstances, to reports on the development and operation of the sheltered workrooms and on mental hygiene work in public schools. Administrative and financial records, and correspondece, are incomplete.
Gift of the estate of Blanche F. Ittleson, 1987-1988. Unpublished finding aid.
