Guides: Health and Societies: Primary Sources

Digitized Online Collections

U.S. government policy

Digital Collections / National Library of Medicine
A diverse collection of digitized documents and other materials from the collections of the National Library of Medicine. Includes personal papers, gray literature collection, report series, rare books, and much more.
American Politics and Society from Kennedy to Watergate (1960-1975)
ProQuest History Vault. US Presidential and federal agency records from the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. Includes records for Johnson's War on Poverty and the National Advisory Commission on Rural Poverty; the official history and documents of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1963-1969; Environmental Protection Agency records on automobile emissions standards and on the health and ecological effects of pollution (1971-1977); the papers of Dean F. Markham and the President's Advisory Commission on Narcotics, 1962-1963; the Cabinet Committee on Drug Law Enforcement, 1976-1977; the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, 1970-1973.
Progressive Era: Reform, Regulation, and Rights (1872-1934)
ProQuest History Vault. Modules include : Papers of the University Settlement Society of New York City, 1886-1945; Progressive Era Regulation: Bureau of Chemistry Records on the Enforcement of the Food and Drugs Act, 1907-1920; Prohibition: Bureau of Internal Revenue Records of the Prohibition Unit and of the Division of Industrial Alcohol, 1918-1934; Prohibition: Records of the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement.
Records of the Children's Bureau, 1912-1969
ProQuest History Vault. Reports, speeches, correspondence and research materials from the first federal agency dedicated entirely to protecting the welfare of children and families.
Development of environmental health policy : Pope A. Lawrence papers 1924-1983
Archives Unbound (Gale Cengage). Personal and professional papers of a longtime Public Health Service and US Department of Health, Education and Welfare environmental health specialist. Collection strengths include industrial hygiene (including a longterm study of the health of uranium miners), health effects of air pollution, and toxic weapons. Originals at National Library of Medicine.
Narcotic addiction and mental health : the clinical papers of Lawrence Kolb Sr.
Archives Unbound (Gale Cengage). Papers of a US Public Health Service researcher and policymaker, pioneering the medical approach to narcotics addition and also public health treatment of mental illness. Originals at National Library of Medicine, with an online finding aid.
Women in the U.S. Military: Correspondence of the Director of the Women's Army Corps, 1942-1946, Part 6: Supplies and Equipment, Transportation, Medical Issues, and Miscellaneous Correspondence
ProQuest History Vault. Part of : Women at Work during World War II: Rosie the Riveter and the Women's Army Corps. Includes documents on medical examinations, medical care, reproductiive hygiene and sex education for WACs. Additional documents discuss suitability of women in heavy labor and barracks and facilities for women in the US Army.

U.S. Historical Collections

Popular Medicine in America, 1800-1900
AM Digital. Documents the history of "popular" remedies and treatments in 19th-century America . From the Library Company of Philadelphia : printed books and pamphlets, trade cares, popular street and anatomy guides, ephemera, posters and broadsides, medical lecture admission cards, and advertisements and letters. From the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 18th- and 19th-century pharmacy and medicine posters from the Ars Medica Collection.
Public Health Archives: Public Health in Modern America, 1890-1970
Gale Cengage. Contains four separate collections. From the New York Academy of Medicine : The Library of Social and Economic Aspects of Medicine from Michael M. Davis, 1920-1966, reflecting the compiler's lifelong efforts in research and policymaking for a national health care plan; Selected Publications on Public Health, presenting 2,000+ rare pamphlets and other printed material, late 19th century to the end of the 1960s; Committee on Public Health (New York Academy of Medicine) records, documents, and unpublished reports on public health policy, disease and illness, family health issues, and environmental concerns. From the US National Archives and Records Administration : Records of the Children's Bureau: Maternal and Child Health, 1912-1969.
History of Disabilities : Disabilities in Society, 17th - 20th Century
Digitized collections from the New York Academy of Medicine Library. Includes historic books and pamphlets on disabilities, and the papers of Alexander E. Macdonald (1865-1906), general superintendent of the New York City Asylums; and Charles Loomis Dana Papers (1876-1932), a New York physician specializing in neurology.
Sex & Sexuality
AM Digital. Two modules. Module I, Research Collections from The Kinsey Institute Library & Special Collections covers correspondence, research papers and records, 1947-1993. Module II, Self-expression, Community and Identity presents LGBTQI+ individual personal histories, accounts of activist organizations, and the papers of sexologists..
Archives of Sexuality and Gender
Gale Cengage. A large and diverse group of individual collections in two main groups. LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Parts I & II, holding the papers of gay rights activists and the records of the Gay Activists Alliance and ACT UP; US government records on the policy and medical response to the AIDS epidemic are also included. Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century, with three collections, the Private Case from the British Library, printed books kept apart from the general collection during 1850-1990, on grounds of obscenity; Special Subject Units from Sex Research, books and other materials, 1700 to 1860, from the Alfred C. Kinsey Institute for Sex Research; and 1,400+ rare and unique monographs from the New York Academy of Medicine.
Women and Health / Mental Health
Gale Cengage. Primary sources documenting the U.S. women's liberation movement's interest in womenh's health and illnesses. Document types include press clippings, journals issues, alternative newspapers, fliers, research papers, graphics, and poetry. Digitized from the National Women's History Project collection. A module of Women's Studies Archive : Women's Issues and Identities.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America records, 1918-1974
Gale Cengage. Includes central administration documentation and correspondence, research subject files, and documentation of related birth control organizations. A module of Gale Cengage's Women's Studies Archive : Women's Issues and Identities.
Margaret Sanger Papers : Smith College Collections and Collected Documents
ProQuest History Vault. Digitized collections documenting Margaret Sanger's activities, including the American Birth Control League and International Planned Parenthood, .
HIV, AIDS & the Arts
Reveal Digital. Curated digitization project on artists' response to the AID crisis. Includes heet music, manuscripts, playbills, production notes, visual art, and personal papers. A JSTOR module of Reveal Digital's Diversity and Dissent project.
Temperance and Prohibition Movement, 1830-1933
ProQuest History Vault. Records, publications, and personal papers relating to the Anti-Saloon League, Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, World League Against Alcohol, Prohibition Party, Scientific Temperance Federation, Intercollegiate Prohibition Association, and other US anti-alcohol movements.
Migration to New Worlds
AM Digital. Primary sources on European and Asian migration to the Americas and Australasia, predominantly British documents but with content from several US collections. Advanced searching field tags for "Country To/" and "... From" and Nationality, but searching for health and illness topics requires many synonyms for health, sickness, and specific diseases.
American Indians and the American West, 1809-1971.
ProQuest History Vault. Includes several records modules from the Bureau of Indian Affairs Central Classified Files, 1907-1939 : Series C, Indian Health and Medical Affairs, Part 1 : Reports on Medical and Nursing Activities and Part 2 : Diseases; BIA Law and Order Section: Alcohol and Peyote Use by American Indians, 1908-1933. Also includes the South Dakota Emergency Relief Administration's 1935 Survey of Indian Reservations. Originals in US National Archives and Records Administration.

British, British Colonial, and International Collections

eHRAF World Cultures
Ethnographic texts for cultures worldwide, coded for cultural attributes. HRAF has expanded coverage to include North American regional, ethnic and diaspora cultures (e.g., Chicanos, Chinese Americans, Cuban Americans, Italian Americans, Korean Americans, North American Hmong). Cultural attribute subject codes include 27 terms for death, health and welfare, 19 terms for reproduction and sexuality, and 28 terms for the life cycle.
Royal College of Physicians
Wiley Digital Archives. Personal papers of British medical personalities, including Edward Jenner. Administrative and some clinical records from several British hospitals, a dispensary, and a private physician practice. Digitized rare books and other materials from the RCP Library. Administrative records for the RCP.
Wellcome Collection
Digitized materials on the history of medicine worldwide. Includes books and journals, ephemera, pictures, audivisual material, archives and manuscripts.
The International Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent
Gale Cengage. Documentation of the international organizations. Includes the Central Registry Archives, 1933-1984, covering League organization, conferences, and missions, and specific health and relief focus areas; Non-Registry Archives, containing short histories of Red Cross Societies worldwide, 1800-1920, Relief Bulletins and records for relief operations and thematic operational files; and the Bulletin of the League and related periodicals.
A Global History of Epidemics, 1800-1970
AM Digital. A large collection of digitized documents from the National Archives (UK) and videostreamed sound and silent films (public health shorts and government-sponsored public information films), produced during 1915-1990, archived by the British Film Institute. NatArch UK documents are drawn from six Ministry of Health file classes covering public health developments within British local government boards and countries worldwide, include British consular reports on epidemics and outbreaks.
British Association for the Advancement of Science (Collections on the History of Science: 1830-1970)
Wiley Digital Archives. In addition to the BAAS papers, including files for the BAAS Anthropology, Physiology, Psychology, and Education sections, this collection provides personal papers from various collections, with medicine, pathology, and physiology materials in the Burton-Sanderson and William Henry Allchin papers.
Pandemics, Society, and Public Health, 1517-1925
British Online Archives. Archival materials from four British archival collections focused on plague, cholera, smallpox, and influenza and their effects upon British history.
Records from Bethlem Royal Hospital, 1559-1932
British Online Archives. The records of "Bedlam", the oldest psychiatric hospital in Europe. Digitized files include : Admission, discharge, and death registers (1683-1919); Male and Female patient casebooks (1793/1778-1913); Voluntary and curable patient casebooks (1816-1913); Criminal and incurable patient admission registers and casebooks (1778-1864); Patient casebooks from the First World War (1914-1919); and Management records (1559-1932). Originals at Bethlem Museum of the Mind.
Department of Technical Co-operation, and Successive Overseas Development Bodies (UK)
Gale Cengage. Relevant archival series include OD 69: Ministry of Overseas Development and Overseas Development Administration: Disaster Unit: Registered Files (DIS Series) and OD 119: Overseas Development Administration and Successors: Health and Population Division: Registered Files. Digitized from National Archives UK). A module of Environmental history : colonial policy and global development, 1896-1993.
Governing Africa :British Records from African Countries under Colonial Rule, 1808-1995
British Online Archives. Digitized annual reports and statistical "blue books", official gazettes, and government reports and documents from British colonial governments in Africa. For each colony, the Blue Books provide annual statistics on hospitals, medical staffing, and health activities and the government reports will include reports from colonial health departments and other agencies involved in public health activities.
Caribbean Colonial Statistics from the British Empire, 1824-1950.
British Online Archives. Annual statistical reports - called "Blue Books" - for Britain's Caribbean colonies. These present statistics on hospitals, staffing, and public health activities.
Medical Services and Warfare
AM Digital. Primary sources focused on two eras, 1850-1927 (Crimean War, US Civil War, Spanish American War, Boer War, World War I) and 1928-1949 (Spanish Civil War, World War II). Highlights include the papers of Alexander Fleming (working notebooks describing the discovery of Lysozyme and Penicillin) and the Florence Nightingale papers, both from originals at the British Library. Additional collections include wartime physician, medic, and nurse diaries; medical hospital unit and field ambulance records; records from the American Red Cross (World War I) and International Federation of Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies (Spanish Civil War, World War II).
Defining Gender : Five Centuries of Advice Literature Online
AM DIgital. Conduct and advice manuals, pamphlets, diaries, commonplace books, and other printed and manuscript documents on conduct and politeness, consumption and leisure, domesticity and the family, education and sensibility, and the body in British culture and society, mid-15th century to early 20th century.
Arcadian Library Online : History of Science and Medicine
Fulltext ebook database featuring ~200 antiquarian works on the history of science and medicine, especially the inter-relationship between Europe and the Islamic World, 9th to 20th century. Digitized from holdings of the Arcadian Library
JSTOR Images
A large collection of images digitized from museums, libraries, and other study collections worldwide. Incorporates the Artstor image database.

Special Collections in the Penn Libraries

Barbara Bates Center for The Study of The History of Nursing

The Barbara Bates Center, located in Suite 2U, Claire M. Fagin Hall, 418 Curie Boulevard, is a tremendous resources, the principal US archive for the history of nursing.

Personal papers at the Barbara Bates Center
The Bates Center holds personal papers of Penn Nursing faculty, as well as nursing organization leaders from the Delaware Valley and across the U.S.
Administrative records at the Bates Center
The Bates Center holds organizational records from professional nursing associations, nursing service and home health agencies, nursing school alumni associations, military nurses veterans organizations, within the Delaware Valley, nationwide, and international.
Barbara Bates Center digitized collections
Includes annual reports from Philadelphia-area hospitals, health services organizations, and nursing schools, as well as personal records of nurses. The Alumnae Association of the Philadelphia General Hospital documents PGH through ~1,500 digitized photographs, 1880s-1970s.

Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

The Kislak Center, located on the 6th floor of the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, has a strong collection on 20th-century health activism, largely centered on Philadelphia.

U. S. Health Activism History Collection (Walter J. Lear U.S. Health Activism History Collection)
Several archival collections of records and ephemera, arranged by organization or under the name of a significant activist collected by Walter Lear, founder of the Institute of Social Medicine and Community Health, with additional collections added through subsequent gifts. Larger collections within the Walter Lear collection include:
- Walter J. Lear papers, 1923-2008.
- Institute of Social Medicine and Community Health records and collected research material on the history of health activism, 1947-2003.
- Medical Committee for Human Rights Records, 1963-2004, with related collections.
- Physicians Forum collection, 1939-1990, originally the Progressive Group of the New York County Medical Society.
- Maternity Care Coalition records, 1960-2009.
- Women's Health Concerns Committee records, 1974-1984.
Leon I. Hyman papers relating to managed care, 1950-2015
Margaret Naumburg papers, 1912-1974
Bert Hansen collection of Sigerist Circle material, 1991-2003
Medical formulae, receipts, prescriptions collections
The Kislak Center holds several dozen traditional pharmaceutical recipe volumes compiled during the 18th through 20th centuries.
William H. Helfand collection of medical quackery ephemera, 1736-2006
William H. Helfand collection of artwork and printed ephemera, 1790-1990
William H. Helfand collection of ex-votos and devotional paintings on medical subjects, 1868-2002
Dr. Daniel and Eleanor Albert collection of ophthalmology material, 1596-2000
Olof Kinberg dossiers of criminally-insane patients, 1931-1938
Wahrman collection of Jews and medicine, 1862-1986
Documents Jewish hospitals, pharmacies, nurses and physicians in Europe, Africa, South Asia and Israel through correspondence, postcards, photographs and medical records

University Archives and Records Center

Special Collections in the Delaware Valley

Philadelphia City Archives, Philadelphia Department of Records

Per the 1952 Home Rule Charter, the City Archives preserves "all City records not in current use and of historical, administrative, legal, research, cultural or other important value." As Philadelphia has not experienced any major natural disasters during the city's existence, the City Archives are rich and deep in historic materials.

PhILS - Philadelphia Information Locator Service / Philadelphia Department of Records
Archived in Wayback Machine, 1/27/2022.
Provides an overview of Philadelphia city government record groups held in the City Archives. Not comprehensive.

Temple University Libraries Special Collections Research Center

Temple Special Collections finding aids
Collections focused on health issues include : AIDS Library (Philadelphia, Pa.) records, 1974-2017; American Cancer Society, Philadelphia Division records, 1965-1978; Choice (Philadelphia, Pa.) records, 1970-2016; Delaware Valley Toxics Coalition records, 1955-1999; Gray Panthers records, 1953-2015; Health/PAC records, 1945-1985; Pennsylvania Physical Therapy Association records, 1955-1996; Philadelphia Association of Occupational Health Nurses records, 1923-1987; Women Organized Against Rape (Philadelphia, Pa.) records, 1960-1997.
George D. McDowell Philadelphia Evening Bulletin collections, [1908]-1982
Temple's Special Collections holds the morgue of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, the most important Philadelphia newspaper for the first 80 years of the 20th century. The morgue includes clippings files and photographs.
Philadelphia Inquirer news clippings and photographs collections,1920s-1990s

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

HSP Medical Collections Subject Guide

Drexel University College of Medicine Legacy Center

Drexel finding aids
Highlighted collections include : Black Women Physicians Project, 1807-2013; American Women’s Hospitals records and photographs, 1917-1982; Bradford collection of biographies of Homoeopathic Physicians, 1868-1918; Susan Smith McKinney Steward Medical Society records, 1946-2004; Hahnemann University Academic Affairs records, 1928-1994; Hahnemann University photograph collection, circa 1840-2004; Medical Women's International Association records, 1919-1996; Obstetrical Society of Philadelphia records, 1868-2015; The Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia Records, 1861-1964; West Philadelphia Hospital for Women records, 1899-1932; Woman's/Medical College of Pennsylvania School of Nursing Records, 1904 - 1980; and papers of many women physicians.

The College of Physicians of Philadelphia Historical Medical Library

CPP finding aids
In addition to documenting the CPP's activities and collecting the papers of significant Philadelphia-area physicians, the Historical Medical Library holds collections for several regional health organizations, including Records of the Philadelphia County Medical Society, 1912-1943; Records of the Philadelphia Dermatologic Society, 1936-1980; Records of The Philadelphia General Hospital, 1884-1941; Records of the Philadelphia Pediatric Society, 1896-1956; Records of the Sydenham Medical Coterie, 1870-1980; Records of the Teratology Society, 1954 - [ongoing].

American Philosophical Society Library

ASP Genetics and Eugenics online guide
Highlights include American Eugenics Society records, 1916-1973; Eugenics Record Office records, 1670-1964; and James V. Neel papers, ca. 1939-1999.

Health and Societies: Primary Sources