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Charles-Edward Amory Winslow papers

 Collection
Call Number: MS 749

Scope and Contents

The C.-E.A. Winslow Papers consist of sixty-five linear feet of correspondence, organization and subject files, teaching papers, photographs, and other materials spanning the period 1892 to 1977, although the bulk of the papers date from 1915 to 1945. Winslow played a leading role in defining and shaping the public health profession in America, and his papers trace the growth of the profession from its origin in bacteriology and sanitary engineering through the development of the voluntary health and health education movements to the emergence of medical care. Winslow made contributions in nearly all areas of public health, and the papers contain material in a wide variety of fields, including public health administration and education, environmental and occupational health, and nursing, in addition to medical care and the voluntary health movement. Winslow was also an influential participant in a variety of world health programs from 1917 through the early 1950s. Although his early work in bacteriology, sanitary engineering, and popular health education are not well documented, the papers do include a limited amount of material in these fields.

The Winslow Papers are also of interest for the information which they provide on the evolution of social reform during the first half of the twentieth century. Among issues covered are voluntarism, the role of government in health and social welfare, and the effects of scientific advance.

The papers are organized in seven series: General Correspondence, Subject Files, Organizations, Academic Papers, Writings, Photographs, and Personal and Family Papers. The General Correspondence and Organizations series are the largest and are of special value.

Series I, General Correspondence, consists of Winslow's general correspondence files and extends throughout his career, although the best coverage is for his tenure at Yale. Each of the other series except Series VI also contains significant amounts of correspondence, and the folder list for Series I includes cross-references to most of the major correspondents in the other series.

Before 1915 the correspondence is limited in volume and often fragmentary. The most extensive and complete exchanges in the early correspondence are the letters between Winslow and William Thompson Sedgwick, his teacher and mentor. Their correspondence, extending from 1899 until Sedgwick's death in 1921, covers both personal and professional topics, and a letter from Sedgwick to Albert Farwell Bemis, who had inquired about Winslow's qualifications for the presidency of Colorado College, provides an unusually frank assessment of Winslow's personality and professional abilities. Winslow's correspondence with John H. Finley and with Henry Fairfield Osborne and others at the American Museum of Natural History concerns activities and career choices prior to 1915, and his early correspondence with Milton J. Rosenau, John A. Kingsbury, and Edwin O. Jordan documents the beginnings of long-standing professional relationships. Other early correspondence of interest includes exchanges with George W. Fuller, Rudolph Herring, George T. Palmer, and Earle B. Phelps regarding the bacteriology of water and sewage treatment, and a letter to Frances A. Shinn detailing reasons for supporting women's suffrage.

After 1915 Winslow's correspondence files become diverse and voluminous. They reflect his teaching and administrative roles, his activity in nearly all fields of public health, and his contributions in related fields. An important component after 1915 is Winslow's correspondence with colleagues and administrators at Yale. Although Series IV, Academic Papers, includes a large amount of routine departmental and student correspondence, Winslow's exchanges with James Rowland Angell, Stanhope Bayne-Jones, Massimo Calabresi, Wilbur L. Cross, George Parmly Day, Thomas W. Farnam, Edgar S. Furniss, Arnold Gesell, Annie W. Goodrich, Arthur T. Hadley, Yandell Henderson, Ira V. Hiscock, William W. Peter, Charles Seymour, Anson Phelps Stokes, and Milton Winternitz in this series provide more substantive information on the development and evolution of the Department of Public Health. The correspondence with Hadley, Henderson and Stokes is especially valuable for the material provided on the founding and early operations of the department. In addition, a letter to Survey Associates (1916 Sep 20) contains a succinct statement of Winslow's initial goals. The correspondence with Winternitz documents Winslow's support and cooperation in reorganizing the School of Medicine during the 1920s and 1930s. The exchanges with Hiscock and, during the early 1940s, with Peter primarily concern the routine teaching and health survey functions of the department.

Exchanges with students and former students occur throughout Series I, and Winslow's correspondence with several individuals, including Leona Baumgartner, Isidore Falk, Cora Gray, Greta Gray, Leonard Greenburg, Wilton Halverson, Dorothy Holland, I. J. Kligler, Philip Nelbach, Howard J. Shaughnessy, and Harold H. Walker reflects significant long-term relationships with former students. The Falk correspondence is of special interest. Spanning from 1918 to 1954, it covers a wide range of personal and professional topics and charts the evolution of Winslow's attitudes towards compulsory national health insurance in the 1930s and 1940s. The correspondence with Greenburg, Shaughnessy, and Walker includes frequent discussions of bacteriological and ventilation research and reflects Winslow's continuing involvement in laboratory work.

Winslow's contacts with public health professionals extended throughout the United States. The large number of files for state and local public health officials, health departments, and teachers, as well as for medical leaders and influential laymen, illustrates his varied roles as spokesman, advisor, and leader of the public health movement. His correspondence with other leading contemporary American public health teachers and administrators is, in the main, best represented in Series III, but Series I contains a substantial volume of correspondence with a number of important figures, including Michael M. Davis, Louis I. Dublin, Haven Emerson, Homer Folks, Wade H. Frost, Franz Goldmann, Selskar Gunn, Samuel C. Prescott, W. F. Wells, and Savel Zimand. The exchanges with the Commonwealth Fund, Sally Lucas Jean, Survey Associates, and Pauline V. Williamson are also of special interest.

Winslow was a senior sanitarian in the United States Public Health Service Reserve, and his extensive correspondence with Public Health Service personnel includes both official and private exchanges. The U.S.P.H.S. files are divided into three groups: general, correspondence regarding the appointment of the surgeon general, and correspondence with the surgeon general. The general correspondence consists primarily of routine inquiries and exchanges. The second group, although fragmented, provides considerable information on Winslow's unsuccessful efforts to block the appointment in 1920 and the reappointment in 1924 of Hugh S. Cumming as surgeon general. The correspondence with the surgeon general includes exchanges with all four incumbents between 1912 and 1956: Rupert Blue, Hugh S. Cumming, Thomas Parran, and Leonard Scheele; the correspondence with Cumming (1920-1936) and Parran (1936-1948) is most valuable. Series III contains files for several Public Health Service committees on which Winslow served.

Series I also contains correspondence with the Department of Agriculture, the Children's Bureau, and several other federal departments and agencies. The file for the United States Federal Security Agency, Board of Inquiry on Employee Loyalty, contains the board's loyalty questionnaire and Winslow's straightforward response.

Winslow was extensively involved in European health activities both as an interested observer and in a number of official capacities, but the correspondence with Leon Bernard, Thorvald Madsen, Sir Arthur Newsholme, Ludwik Rajchman, Andrija Stampar, and a number of other leading European public health professionals tends to be largely routine in nature. An exception is Winslow's correspondence with several British public health officials, including Sir Alan Daley, Arthur Massey, and Sir George Newman, which contains limited but substantive material on local and national health programs.

Other material of special note in Series I includes Winslow's correspondence regarding nursing and his exchanges with elected officials. The bulk of the material on nursing is in Series II, III, and IV, but the correspondence in Series I with M. Adelaide Nutting provides an important commentary on many of the major issues confronting nursing between the mid-1910s and the mid-1920s. The correspondence with Lillian D. Wald and others of the Henry Street Settlement is less extensive but covers the same period. Other nursing teachers and administrators represented in the files include Ella Phillips Crandall, Elizabeth G. Fox, Josephine Goldmark, Annie Goodrich, Julia C. Lathrop, Isabel Stewart, Effie J. Taylor, and Katherine Tucker. The Mary A. Anderson file, which concerns Winslow's efforts in 1940 to assist a black student nurse, is also of interest.

Winslow's correspondence with elected officials is sporadic and is typically limited to one or a few letters, but his exchanges with William Benton, Chester Bowles, Prescott Bush, John A. Danaher, Martin Dies, Fiorello LaGuardia, Augustine Lonergan, George McClean, Brien McMahon, and Robert F. Wagner, among others, are worthy of note. They primarily concern public health topics but they also provide information on a variety of other social and political issues, including women's suffrage, international affairs, loyalty investigations, and social welfare.

Series II, Subject Files, is one of the smallest series in the Winslow Papers, but the correspondence, reports, research material, and printed matter which it contains supplements the material in Series I and Series III. The series is divided by topic into seven sections: Health Insurance, Housing, Milk Regulation, Nursing, Studies and Surveys, Tuberculosis (State and Local Societies), and Miscellaneous Subject Files.

The Studies and Surveys section is the largest and most complete. It contains the extant papers of twenty health surveys, ventilation studies, and other special studies in which Winslow participated between 1916 and 1948. A few of the projects are extensively documented. The section includes files on three health surveys of Connecticut towns: Hartford, Middletown, and New London. The Yale Department of Public Health annually performed health surveys, without charge, for Connecticut communities requesting the service. Winslow conducted these and other health surveys with the assistance of department colleagues, most frequently Ira V. Hiscock. The papers of the Hartford and Middletown surveys are made up of one file each, but the material on the New London survey is more extensive and contains information on the intense criticism of the survey findings by several local physicians. The section does not include material on Winslow's classic survey of New Haven which was published in 1917, but the New Haven Health Department files (see Section III) do contain a few letters and other material concerning the study.

The other community health surveys in the section are for five cities and towns in Massachusetts: Boston, Brookline, New Bedford, Springfield, and Worcester. The materials for Boston cover two surveys, one conducted by Winslow and Hiscock in 1926 and the second a survey done in 1948 on which Winslow was a consultant. The files of all five surveys are limited in volume and, except for the New Bedford survey, consist mostly of correspondence.

In addition to the community health surveys, the section contains papers of four special surveys: Cattaraugus County (New York) survey of health programs, Letchworth Village (New York) study, Pittsburgh and Allegheny County social service survey, and Rhode Island Tuberculosis Association health survey. The Cattaraugus County survey, which was commissioned by the Milbank Memorial Fund in 1929 as a review of its health demonstration there, is of special interest. The papers of the survey include correspondence with Reginald M. Atwater, Ira V. Hiscock and others, and a few study outlines. The Letchworth Village study is also well documented.

Four of the studies in the section those of the L. Candee Company, Ellis Island, Fiske Rubber Company, and Metropolitan Opera House concern ventilation. The papers of the Candee, Ellis Island, and Fiske studies are very limited, but the files of the Metropolitan Opera House study are somewhat more complete and include research notes and layouts.

Of the remaining four studies two, the Aeolian Building study, which concerns natural illumination, and the Connecticut River study, which concerns water pollution, were commissioned as a result of legal cases. The last two studies are the New Haven rickets study, on which Winslow served as a member of the advisory committee, and the prenatal care study, which he chaired. The papers of both the prenatal care and the Aeolian Building studies include working papers.

The Miscellaneous Subject Files section contains two folders of special interest. The first concerns the protest, organized by Winslow, of public health professionals following the dismissal of Chicago Health Commissioner Herman N. Bundesen. The second, political activities, documents Winslow's allegiance to and financial support of the Democratic Party, and it contains the only material on the 1928 presidential campaign organization, Public Health Workers for Smith, which Winslow chaired.

Series III, Organizations, is the largest series in the Winslow Papers and is a remarkably rich source of information on the development of public health from ca. 1915 to the early 1950s. The series consists of the papers of eighty-three professional associations, voluntary agencies, foundations, commissions, conferences, and other organizations in which Winslow participated. Two organizations which played a decisive role in the growth of twentieth century public health the American Public Health Association and the Committee on the Costs of Medical Care are especially well documented. The series also contains extensive material on the Connecticut Department of Health. The papers of the other organizations are less voluminous and are typically less complete, but cumulatively they provide valuable coverage of voluntary health agencies (in the areas of child health, mental hygiene, social hygiene/planned parenthood, and tuberculosis), medical care, nursing, occupational and environmental health, and world health. Also included in the series are the papers of two private foundations and a variety of civic groups and conferences. A special strength of the series is the large amount of correspondence with important figures in public health and social policy. (Series I includes cross references to most of the significant correspondents in series III.)

American Public Health Association

The American Public Health Association files (1902-1957) are the largest in Series III and are the broadest in scope. The papers are organized in three subsections: General Papers, American Journal of Public Health, and committees and Sections. The General Papers document Winslow's activities as a member of the Executive Board and Governing Council and, in 1926, as president. They include extensive runs of budgets, minutes, and miscellaneous materials regarding routine operations, as well as correspondence with most leading public health figures of the period. The Journal papers consist primarily of correspondence during Winslow's term as editor (1944-1954). A brief 1948 letter to David B. Wilson outlining Winslow's editorial policy on the controversial topic of medical care is of special interest. Committees and Sections is the largest of the three subsections. Winslow was the first chairman of the Committee on Administrative Practice and of the Committee on the Hygiene of Housing and was the first accreditor of the Committee on Professional Education. These committees are well documented, and the subsection also contains a few papers of the Industrial Hygiene Section and the Sedgwick Memorial Medal Committee.

Committee on the Costs of Medical Care

Winslow was one of the organizers of the Committee on the Costs of Medical Care, and the committee's papers (1927-1933) consist of both his personal files as vice-chairman of the committee and chairman of its Executive Committee and a portion of the official records of the organization. The early papers provide good documentation of the original impetus to conduct a comprehensive study of the organization and costs of medical care and the formation of the committee. A 1928 letter from Sidney Webb is of special interest. The executive and general committee minutes, reports, planning papers, and the correspondence with study director Harry H. Moore, assistant director Isidore S. Falk, Michael M. Davis, and others provide detailed information on committee operations and on recurring questions of policy and procedure. The correspondence files, along with the papers on reports and publications, describe Winslow's role in overseeing the twenty-seven major surveys and economic analyses produced by the committee. The papers also contain materials on the writing of the committee's benchmark final report, Medical Care for the American People, including material on the efforts of Winslow, Chairman Ray Lyman Wilbur and others to achieve consensus among the committee's members.

Connecticut Department of Health

The early materials in the Connecticut Department of Health papers (1916-1951) are incomplete, but they provide information on Winslow's primary role in planning and securing the passage of legislation which created a modern health department in the state. The main body of the papers includes extensive runs of minutes and reports of the Public Health Council, of which Winslow was a member from the department's founding in 1917 to 1951, and annual reports, budgets, correspondence, and miscellaneous files on programs. Winslow's correspondence with Commissioners John T. Black (1917-1922) and Stanley H. Osborne (1922-1951) and other department staff, as well as with state legislators and others concerned with public health, covers a wide variety of topics including control of venereal and other communicable diseases, local and state health conditions, reporting of vital statistics, licensing of physicians, health education, legislative proposals, and public health nursing.

Winslow was appointed chairman of the council's Committee on Public Health Nursing in February 1920, and the subsequent correspondence contains frequent exchanges concerning committee activities. The papers also contain occasional references to his related activities on the county and local levels. In general, Winslow's correspondence from 1917 to the mid 1920s is especially rich and shows his greatest involvement in department activities, but the papers as a whole provide good documentation of the department's operations during his thirty-four years as a member of the Public Health Council.

Voluntary Health Agencies

Winslow was an eloquent spokesman for the voluntary health movement and a leader of national, state, and local agencies in a variety of areas. The following description lists the voluntary agencies represented in Series III in four areas child health, mental hygiene, social hygiene/planned parenthood, tuberculosis and includes other related organizations.

Winslow was actively involved in the voluntary child health movement as early as 1913 (see Series I, American Association for Infant and Child Mortality), and Series III contains the papers of seven child health organizations and conferences: the American Child Hygiene Association (1921-1923), the Child Health Organization of America (1919-1923), the National Child Health Council (1920), the American Child Health Association (1923-1931), the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection (1929-1931), the White House Conference on Children in a Democracy (1939-1940), and the United States Children's Bureau, National Commission on Children and Youth (1946-1951). The American Child Health Association papers for 1923 to 1925 provide extensive information about its founding and initial operations. The papers of the two White House conferences also provide good documentation of Winslow's participation and of conference activities.

The mental hygiene materials in Section III consist of the papers of the Connecticut Society for Mental Hygiene (1915-1948) and a more limited volume of papers of the National Society for Mental Hygiene. Winslow served as president of the Connecticut society, the pioneer voluntary mental health organization, from 1928 to 1939. Its papers record efforts to achieve stability in terms of funding and programs.

The Connecticut Council of Defense and the Connecticut Department of Health include information on the control of venereal disease, and four organizations the Connecticut Society of Social Hygiene (1916-1921), the American Social Hygiene Association (1919-1949), the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut (1931, 1940-1954), and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (1940-1954) deal specifically with social hygiene and planned parenthood. The papers of both national organizations are extensive, and the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut papers are an especially valuable source on efforts to alter state legislation restricting the dissemination of birth control information.

The National Tuberculosis Association papers (1921-1953) are less extensive than the papers of voluntary agencies in other areas but are supplemented by Winslow's correspondence with state and local tuberculosis societies in Series II.

Medical Care

In the mid 1920s Winslow became the first public health leader of his generation to recognize that the profession needed to address the problems of organization and cost of medical care. In addition to the papers of the American Public Health Association and especially of the Committee on the Costs of Medical Care, the series contains the papers of seven organizations which deal directly with the subject of medical care: the New Haven Health Center Demonstration (1919-1923), Life Extension Institute (1922-1944), the United States Committee on Economic Security (1934-1935), National Health Conference (1938), the Organizing Committee for Social Union, Inc. (1935-1945), the Group Health Cooperative, Inc. (1941-1943), and the New Haven Group Health Council (1951). Although the papers of each of these groups are fragmentary, they provide valuable insights into the evolution of Winslow's views on social medicine. The papers of the New Haven Health Center Demonstration and the Organizing Committee for Social Union, Inc. are especially interesting, while a letter to Winslow's daughter (1942 May 6) in the Group Health Cooperative, Inc. outlines his views on group practice prepayment plans.

Nursing

The material concerning public health nursing and the development of nursing as an independent profession is a special strength of Series III. The series includes papers of eleven nursing and nursing-related organizations: the National Organization for Public Health Nursing (1915-1950); the Connecticut State Council of Defense (1917-1919); United States Council of National Defense, Medical Advisory Board, Committees on Nursing (1917-1918); the Committee for the Study of Nursing Education (1920-1926); the New Haven Visiting Nurse Association (1920-1950); the American Committee for Devastated France (1921-1925); the Committee on the Grading of Nursing Schools (1923-1939); the Frontier Nursing Service (1925-1944); the East Harlem Nursing and Health Service (1928-1931); the Monmouth County Organization for Social Service (1926-1948); and the National League of Nursing Education (1938).

The papers of the Committee on the Grading of Nursing Schools and the National Organization for Public Health Nursing are the most voluminous and represent important sources on the professionalization of nursing. Winslow's correspondence with Ella Phillips Crandall and others in the National Organization for Public Health Nursing papers provide a commentary on the development of professional nursing over a thirty-five year period. The papers also describe Winslow's role as mentor and advisor to two generations of nursing leaders.

The papers of the Committees on Nursing of the U.S. Council of Defense, Medical Advisory Board and of the American Committee for Devastated France are also of special interest. Although fragmentary, the Committees on Nursing records provide information on the major impact which the wartime demand for nurses had on nursing education. The American Committee for Devastated France papers contain extensive correspondence with Mary C. Breckenridge, Julia Stimson, Evelyn Walker, and especially Anne Morgan regarding both the training of nurses and post-war attitudes toward French medicine. Each of the other series in the Winslow Papers, except for Series VI, also contains material on nursing.

Occupational and Environmental Health

The Studies and Surveys section of Series II is supplemented in Series III by papers in three areas of occupational and environmental health: ventilation, siliceous and metallic dust hazards, and the hygiene of housing. The earliest material in the series, the papers of the Church Association for the Advancement of Labor, Boston Chapter (ca. 1904-1905), contains observations on factory ventilation which Winslow included in his important paper, "The Sanitary Dangers of Certain Occupations." Other material on ventilation are the papers of the New York Commission on Ventilation (1912-1930) and the American Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers (1925-1953). The papers of the New York Commission on Ventilation (first constituted as the New York State Commission on Ventilation) are fragmentary for the organization's first phase which ran from 1913 to 1923 and saw the publication of pioneering studies on school ventilation.

The papers of the National Safety Council (1926-1942), Worker's Health Bureau of America (1924-1928), and the Abrasive Wheel Safety Code Sectional Committee of the American Standards Association (1919-1942) concern siliceous and metallic hazards in industry. The records of the first two organizations, while fragmentary, are of interest in illustrating Winslow's differing approaches to the problem of silica dust.

Winslow began work on the hygiene of housing in the 1930s. In addition to material in the American Public Health Association and the League of Nations files, the series contains fragmentary materials for three housing organizations: the National Housing Conference (1950-1954), the Housing and Home Finance Agency (1949-1953), and the New Haven Housing Authority (1941-1955). Winslow served as chairman of the housing authority, which was one of the first in the country, from its inception in 1937 to ca. 1957. The authority's papers are most complete for the early 1950s and include minutes, planning papers, and correspondence concerning building plans and tenant problems.

In addition, Series III contains a limited amount of material on two United States Public Health Service committees concerning occupational and environmental health: the Advisory Committee on Official Water Standards and the Committee on Tetraethyl Lead. The material regarding the John B. Pierce Laboratory of Hygiene in the Yale University section of Series IV is also of special note.

World Health

Winslow's earliest participation in European health programs was as a member of the American Red Cross Mission to Russia (see Series I), and after World War I he played leading roles in both international organizations and American groups which supported cooperation with Europe. The papers of the five interwar organizations the League of Red Cross Societies (1920-1923), the American Committee for Devastated France (1921-1925), the League of Nations (1921-1945), the League of Nations Association (1922-1945), and the International Health Board of the Rockefeller Foundation (1924-1952) provide insights into American attitudes toward Europe following the war as well as information on efforts to develop international health programs. The papers of the American Committee for Devastated France (see Nursing above) and the League of Nations are of special value; the latter include information on Winslow's European travels and contacts in addition to League programs.

The papers of the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace (1942-1947) include valuable material on the drafting of plans for what was to become the United Nations. The papers of the other wartime and postwar organizations the United States Office of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operations (1942-1943), the American Association for the United Nations (1945-1953), and the World Health Organization (1946-1953) are fragmentary and largely routine.

Two other organizations in the series, the British War Relief Society, New Haven Committee (1940-1945), and the Russian War Relief, Connecticut Committee (1942-1943) provide information on Winslow's attitudes toward Europe and international cooperation. (Series I, IV, and VII also include materials concerning world health and Winslow's European travels.)

Other Organizations

Among the other organizations in Series III, the papers of two private foundations the Milbank Memorial Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation are especially noteworthy. The papers of both indicate the very important role which private foundations played in the development of public health. Winslow was an officer or consultant of the Milbank Memorial Fund from 1922 to 1957, and the Fund's papers are especially valuable.

The remaining twenty-seven organizations cover a variety of topics. Included are the papers of the New York State Department of Health, the Society of American Bacteriologists, and a number of health conferences and local civic organizations.

Series IV, Academic Papers, is composed of two sections, Yale University and Other Institutions. Winslow served as Anna M. R. Lauder Professor of Public Health and Chairman of the Department of Public Health in Yale University from 1915 to 1945, and the Yale section makes up the bulk of the series. Other Institutions contains the limited extant material on his appointments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1900-1910) and the College of the City of New York (1910-1914), as well as a number of visiting and term appointments.

The Yale University papers provide broad but uneven coverage of Winslow's tenure. They include general and subject correspondence files which supplement the correspondence with Yale colleagues and administrators cited in Series I, fairly extensive but fragmentary teaching files, and relatively few administrative records. The papers are divided into three subsections: General Papers, School of Medicine, and Department of Public Health.

The General Papers contain twenty-two folders of correspondence which extend from Winslow's appointment in 1915 to 1954. They provide extensive information on the day-to-day operations of the Department of Public Health as well as on Winslow's activities in the School of Medicine and the university as a whole. In addition to routine exchanges concerning course listings, student grades, and supplies and facilities, the correspondence includes information on Winslow's appointment, the hiring of faculty, and the reorganization of the Department of Public Health in the early 1930s. The General Papers also contain files on Winslow's committee work and other activities outside the School of Medicine and the Department of Public Health. Although all of the files are limited in volume and most are fragmentary, several of the files (especially those of the Department of University Health, the Venereal Disease Clinic, and nursing) describe Winslow's activities and accomplishments within the university.

The School of Medicine subsection consists primarily of committee files, memoranda and reports. Minutes of the Board of Permanent Officers for the years 1919 to 1922, 1929 to 1931, 1933 to 1939, and 1942 to 1944 and of the Prudential Committee for the years 1937 to 1940 are nearly complete. The remaining committee files, memoranda and reports are fragmentary, although two folders, one for the Committee on Hospitalization Insurance and the other containing a memorandum recommending the development of a prepaid health care program by New Haven Hospital and the School of Medicine (see folder 77), are of special interest. These folders, along with a third in the Department of Public Health subsection which contains a confidential memorandum from Winslow to his successor as chairman, Ira V. Hiscock (see folder 144), provide information on efforts to develop a prepaid medical care program at Yale during Winslow's tenure.

The largest of the three subsections, the Department of Public Health, is organized under the following headings: correspondence, budgets and financial statements, minutes, reports, courses, and miscellany. The correspondence is extensive and, among other topics, includes lengthy runs of letters with students (1915-1945) and correspondence regarding public health positions (1915-1945) and the John B. Pierce Laboratory of Hygiene (1932-1955). The latter is of special interest and, combined with the Leonard Greenburg and L. P. Herrington correspondence (see Series I), provides the primary documentation of Winslow's directorship of the Pierce Laboratory. The laboratory was founded by the John B. Pierce Foundation in 1934 to study the relationship between atmospheric conditions and human health and comfort. Winslow served as its first director from 1934 to 1947. The administrative files of the Department of Public Health (budgets and financial statements, minutes, and reports) are incomplete, and the extant materials are fragmentary.

The course materials include files for ten courses which Winslow taught at Yale: Civil Affairs Training School, Section on Public Health; Epidemiology; History of Public Health; Hygiene 20; Industrial Hygiene; Microscopy of Water; Principles of Public Health; Public Health Seminar; Social Aspects of Medicine; and School Health. The materials for most of the courses are fragmentary and include a variety of teaching materials (e.g. attendance forms, bibliographies, bibliographic citations, handouts, reprints) and correspondence. The files of five courses Hygiene 20, History of Public Health, Microscopy of Water, Principles of Public Health, and Public Health Seminar include lecture notes or texts. The extensive materials for the Principles of Public Health, Winslow's best known course, are divided into three chronological groups. The earliest materials date from 1916 to 1943 and are made up of course outlines, examinations, memoranda, and schedules. The second group of materials dates from 1944, just prior to Winslow's retirement from teaching, when W. W. Peter recorded the lectures to provide the basis for a book. The 1944 Principles of Public Health materials consist of one folder of memoranda, schedules, and a course syllabus; forty-seven Soundscriber recordings of lectures (separated to Historical Sound Recordings, Sterling Memorial Library); and forty-nine folders containing transcriptions of lectures, Soundscriber jackets, and, occasionally, reference material. One additional folder contains only teaching materials. The third group of Principles of Public Health materials, the post-1944 files, represents Winslow's cumulative teaching, research, and reference files for the course. Items in the files extend from the late 1920s to the early 1950s. The files are arranged numerically by lecture number.

The History of Public Health, a special series of lectures which Winslow presented ca. 1952, is also well documented. The files contain his lecture notes for the complete series.

The papers in the Other Institutions section are arranged alphabetically by institution. Prior to 1915 Winslow held regular faculty appointments in his alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1900-1910), and in the College of the City of New York (1910-1914). He also held a one-semester visiting professorship at the University of Chicago (1910). In addition he served as a lecturer in nursing and public health at the Columbia University Teacher's College from ca. 1911 to 1926. These appointments are not well documented, although there are small amounts of correspondence and print material for each. The University of Chicago files include lecture notes.

The very limited material on Winslow's early teaching career in the series is supplemented by his correspondence for the period in Series I (see especially American Museum of Natural History, M. Adelaide Nutting, Isabel Stewart, and William Thompson Sedgwick). In addition Series VI contains a number of photographs taken during his University of Chicago and College of the City of New York appointments, and Series VII includes Winslow's student and alumni papers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

During his tenure at Yale, Winslow participated in two major public health institutes, the First Annual Los Angeles Institute on Public Health and the University of Paris Institute of Hygiene (both in 1927), taught hygiene and bacteriology in the World War I Vassar Training Camp for Nurses, and served a one semester visiting appointment in 1940 as Rosenberg Professor of Public Health in the University of California at Berkeley. The files for the two institutes include lecture notes or texts. The Rosenberg Professorship papers contain a large amount of correspondence and teaching materials for most of Winslow's lectures. The Vassar Training Camp papers do not include teaching materials but do contain letters discussing curricula and an extensive run of the camp newspaper.

The section also contains lecture texts and a small amount of correspondence for two series of lectures which Winslow presented after his retirement from Yale (1945), one to the British Columbia Institute for Public Health Workers (1947) and the other at the University of North Carolina (1946).

Series V, Writings, provides extensive documentation of Winslow's journal articles and speeches and includes some information on his books and unpublished writings. The series is divided into six sections; Bibliographies, Books, Reprints, Shorter Writings, Speeches, and Miscellany; and each section is organized chronologically.

Bibliographies includes a reprint of the "Bibliography of Charles-Edward Amory Winslow" (Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, March 1947) as well as fragmentary lists of publications grouped by subject and citations for some of Winslow's publications after 1947.

The Books section contains correspondence and, occasionally, other materials for seven books which Winslow published between 1910 and 1945. It also includes correspondence, drafts of one book, and other materials for The Winslow Health Series, a series of textbooks and other teaching materials for public schools.

The Reprints section contains one hundred and ninety-nine reprints or tear sheets of Winslow's journal and magazine articles. It includes ten citations which are not included in the published bibliography (see folders 39, 56, 57, 68, 72, 143, 155, 175, 208, 210). Most of these citations are for very brief pieces or for articles in which Winslow is cited as a secondary author, but they include a poem, "To the Concord River" (1899), and two longer articles, "History of the Sewage Disposal Problem" (1907) and "Public Health in the Postwar World" (1945).

The Shorter Writings section contains a variety of materials, including drafts of journal articles, unpublished manuscripts, published letters, pamphlets, and editorials. Items of special interest are correspondence and research materials for Winslow's important study, "An Outbreak of Tonsilitis or Septic Sore Throat in Eastern Massachusetts and Its Relation to an Infected Milk Supply" (1911), correspondence and editorials from his three-year term as editor of The Nation's Health (1921-1927), and correspondence (1923-1955) concerning Magda (a translation of the play Heimat by Herman Sudermann) which was Winslow's first publication. The section also contains correspondence and other materials concerning the "Winslow Health and Hygiene Charts" for public schools (1923-1955).

The Speeches section is the largest in the series and provides very extensive documentation of Winslow's important role as interpreter of the public health movement before both lay and professional groups. The section is divided into two subsections, General Papers and Texts and notes. General Papers contains eighty-nine folders of correspondence concerning speaking invitations and arrangements extending from 1910 to 1950 and nine folders of programs. The Texts and notes subsection is made up of three hundred and twenty-one texts, notes, or outlines of speeches which Winslow presented between 1898 and 1952.

The last section, Miscellany, contains notes regarding antiseptics and unidentified reference materials. Winslow also served as editor of the American Journal of Public Health (see Series III) and editor of his high school and college newspapers (see Series VII).

Series VI, Photographs, is made up primarily of photographic prints and negatives, although it also includes post cards, two copper printing plates, and a Chinese scroll. The material extends from ca. 1874 to 1957 and is arranged chronologically by groups; the best coverage is for the years 1907 to the early 1950s. The photographs in the series are of two types: studio portraits and snapshots. The studio portraits include a few class pictures and group photographs taken at banquets or on other formal occasions, but they consist mostly of portraits of Winslow and record him at regular intervals from 1907 to shortly before his death. The snapshots are more varied, consisting primarily of photographs taken by Winslow or his family while traveling. Other snapshots include family scenes in Connecticut and Massachusetts and photographs of others which were apparently sent to Winslow or his family. Both the studio photographs and the snapshots include occasional views of laboratories, filtration plants, and other public health equipment and facilities.

The earliest identifiable group of snapshots in the series was taken in 1910 while Winslow was teaching at the University of Chicago and includes views of Winslow with his students and wife and daughter. Included with the photographs are a collection of post cards showing views of the University of Chicago and other campuses at which he lectured during his stay in the Midwest.

The photographs which Winslow took while a participant in the American Red Cross Mission to Russia in 1917 are of special interest. With the accompanying post cards, they are a pictorial journal of Winslow's activities during the fall of 1917, beginning with a family gathering in Ipswich, Massachusetts, and extending through the mission's journey across Canada, the Pacific and Japan, its travels in Russia, and its return via Korea and China. Most of the photographic prints and negatives are numbered, and two hundred and fifty-nine prints are indexed and annotated in a notebook included with the photographs. The photographs include a variety of views of Winslow and other members of the mission, buildings and sites of general interest, and, frequently, street scenes and other views illustrating either local life and customs or health conditions. Among the one hundred and eighty-one post cards, the largest number are from Russia, but each of the other countries through which the mission traveled is also represented. The post cards include both patriotic subjects, sites and buildings, and scenes depicting national costumes and customs. (For his diary for the period and other materials see Series I, American Red Cross Mission to Russia.)

Many of the later snapshots were taken during Winslow's regular European trips in the 1920s and 1930s. They include a number of scenes showing health facilities and activities in Italy, Yugoslavia and elsewhere in eastern and southern Europe. Also from the period are a variety of family snapshots, views of the British countryside, and several group portraits, including three photographs of Winslow with members of the Committee on the Costs of Medical Care. The post 1940 photographs consist primarily of snapshots and portraits of Winslow but also include views of him with his wife, students, and others. (Undated groups of snapshots have been organized by approximate date when possible.)

Series VII, Personal and Family Papers, consists primarily of Winslow's personal materials, but it also includes papers of his wife and a few materials of his mother, father and daughter. The series is organized in three sections: C.-E.A. Winslow, Anne Rogers Winslow, and Other Family Members. The C.E.A. Winslow section covers the period 1892 to 1977 and is divided into a number of subsections: Correspondence; Awards and Honors; Biographical Materials; Commemorative Awards; Diaries, Appointment Books, notebooks, English High School, Geneaology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Travel Materials, Miscellany. The correspondence subsection contains social notes, exchanges regarding personal and family business, and letters from his family. Winslow's letters to his family are filed in the appropriate sections in the series. The correspondence also contains letters which Winslow received on special occasions, including his retirement from Yale and his sixty-eighth and seventy-fifth birthdays.

The Awards and Honors, Biographical Materials, and Commemorative Awards subsections contain the primary awards which Winslow received; a variety of biographical materials including curriculum vitae, unpublished biographical sketches, obituaries, and reprints of articles; and files on several commemorative awards. Other subsections of special interest are Diaries, Appointment Books, notebooks and Travel Materials. The former subsection contains appointment books for the years 1907 to 1909, 1918 to 1920, 1923, 1928 to 1929, and 1931 to 1952. There are also five undated appointment books. Winslow usually kept diaries only when traveling. The diaries provide extensive information on his European trips, including his participation in the American Red Cross Mission to Russia in 1917 (see also Series I) and his trip to the Soviet Union in 1936. The subsection also contains two research notebooks, a notebook listing income by source for the years 1907 to 1938, and a notebook listing major achievements and events for the years 1907 to 1952. The Travel Materials subsection includes correspondence and other material concerning his two trips to Russia, along with passports and miscellaneous itineraries.

Winslow's English High School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology records are also of interest. The former include runs of The E. H. S. Record which Winslow edited with H. R. Morse and a letter from Morse (1942 Dec 8) which contains reminiscences of their student days and of Winslow's mother. The M. I. T. papers include runs of The Techwhich Winslow edited in 1896-1897 and the Class of '98 class book, which contains the class minutes from 1894 to 1898. Winslow's M. I. T. Alumni Association papers are more extensive and include correspondence, Walker Memorial Committee minutes, and print material. The Miscellany subsection includes poems by Winslow and an extensive run of news clippings.

The Anne Rogers Winslow section contains correspondence, subject files, and other materials which span the years 1905 to 1960. The correspondence consists primarily of letters from Winslow, exchanges with other members of the family, and social correspondence, including exchanges with many of Winslow's colleagues and associates. The subject files provide information on Mrs. Winslow's participation in local and national nursing organizations, especially the Institute for Board Members of Public Health Nursing Organizations and the National Women's Committee of the Mobilization for Human Needs.

The Other Family Members section contains a small amount of material of the Winslows' daughter, Anne (Nancy) Winslow, and of his parents, Erving and Catherine (Reignolds) Winslow. The Erving Winslow papers contain correspondence with Winslow, Mrs. Winslow, and others, including a lengthy letter from Grover Cleveland regarding the Anti-Imperialist League. The papers also include copies of two articles which he wrote and a memorial pamphlet.

The bulk of the Winslow Papers were originally accessioned by the Department of Manuscripts and Archives as part of the records of the Yale University Department of Public Health. Additions to the papers were given to the department by Isidore S. Falk in 1973 and 1975 and by Mrs. George Rosen in 1979.

Dates

  • 1874-1977
  • Majority of material found within 1915 - 1945

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

The materials are open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright status for collection materials is unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The bulk of the papers were originally accessioned as part of the records of the Yale University Department of Public Health. Additions were given by Isidore S. Falk in 1973 and 1975; by Mrs. George Rosen in 1979, and by Anne Winslow in 1994.

Arrangement

Arranged in seven series and one addition: I. General Correspondence, 1897-1957. II. Subject Files, 1901-1955. III. Organizations, 1901-1957. IV. Academic Papers, 1902-1960. V. Writings, 1898-1953. VI. Photographs, 1896-1957. VII. Personal and Family Papers, 1892-1977.

Related Material

Contemporary Medical Care and Health Policy Collection, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

Extent

69 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

English

Catalog Record

A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog

Persistent URL

https://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/mssa.ms.0749

Abstract

The papers consist of correspondence, diaries, organization and subject files, teaching materials, manuscripts, photographs, and other materials documenting the professional career and personal life of C.-E.A. Winslow, a prominent figure in the public health movement. Correspondence focuses on health and social welfare issues with several notable educators, doctors, and social policy advocates. Organization files include material relating to the United States Public Health Service and the American Public Health Association. Records of the Association's Committee on the Cost of Medical Care are also included, as are teaching files from Yale University, writings and lectures, reprints of articles, and family papers. Anne Rogers Winslow's photographic journals of her husband's American Red Cross mission to the Soviet Union in 1917 is an example of family material. These papers form part of the Contemporary Medical Care and Health Policy Collection.

Biographical / Historical

Charles-Edward Amory Winslow was recognized nationally by the time of his death as the elder statesman of the American public health movement. In addition to his career as a teacher, he served as an organization leader, editor, consultant, policy formulator and writer. The following list contains some principal events in his personal and professional life:

1877
born in Boston to Erving and Catherine (Reignolds) Winslow
1894
was graduated from the English High School, Boston
1898
received B.S. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1898
assistant health officer, Montclair, New Jersey
1899
received M.S. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1899-1902
performed special work during summers in engineer's office, Massachusetts State Board of Health
1900-1910
instructor and later assistant professor (1903) of sanitary bacteriology in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1903-1910
biologist-in-charge, Sanitary Research Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1907
married Anne Fuller Rogers
1910
visiting assistant professor of bacteriology in the University of Chicago
1918-1914
associate professor of biology in the College of the City of New York
1910-1922
curator of public health in the American Museum of Natural History
1911-1926
lecturer in public health and nursing in Columbia University Teachers College
1914-1915
director of Division of Public Health Education, New York State Department of Health
1915-1945
Anna M. R. Lauder Professor of Public Health in Yale University
1916-1944
editor-in-chief, Journal of Bacteriology
1917
member, American Red Cross Mission to Russia
1917-1951
member, Public Health Council, Connecticut Department of Health
1918
received honorary D.P.H. degree from New York University
1921
general medical director, League of Red Cross Societies
1922-1925
editor, The Nation's Health
1926
president, American Public Health Association
1927-1930
expert assessor, Health Committee, League of Nations
1928-1932
vice-chairman and chairman of the Executive Committee, Committee on the Costs of Medical Care
1932-1947
director of the John B. Pierce Laboratory of Hygiene
1942
received Sedgwick Memorial Medal
1944-1954
editor, American Journal of Public Health
1945-1957
professor emeritus in Yale University
1952
received Leon Barnard Foundation Prize
1957
died, New Haven, Connecticut

For additional biographical information see Series VII, below, and the Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 6. The Winslow Papers are part of the Contemporary Medical Care and Health Policy Collection, and other manuscript groups in the collection, especially the Isidore S. Falk Papers (Ms. Group No. 1039), supplement the material in these papers.

Title
Guide to the Charles-Edward Amory Winslow Papers
Status
Under Revision
Author
by R. Joseph Anderson, Alan Hoffman, and Nancy Robertson
Date
July 1981
Description rules
Finding Aid Created In Accordance With Manuscripts And Archives Processing Manual
Language of description note
Finding aid written in English.

Part of the Manuscripts and Archives Repository

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