Research Guides: HLTH 218: Experiencing and Responding to Illness and Disability (HC) Spring 2016: Primary Sources

Primary Sources on U. S. Medicine

Anatomy lesson at the Woman's College of New York Medical Infirmary, 1870 (Wikimedia Commons)

Finding Primary Source Texts

Primary source texts that have been edited, reprinted in facsimiles, or transferred to microfilm can be borrowed through E Z Borrow or interlibrary loan if they are not in Tripod.

*** Many of them will be listed in Tripod and WorldCat under subject terms which include such words as "sources," "letters," "diaries," or "personal narratives." For example, the search:

(medicine OR medical) ("personal narratives") [keyword] ("united states") history [subject] = 39 results including:

The Wounded River: The Civil War Letters of John Vance Lauderdale, M.D. /
Author:John Vance Lauderdale Publication: Michigan State University Press, 1993

A Woman Doctor's Civil War: Esther Hill Hawk's Diary /
Author: Edsther Hill Hawk. Publication: : University of South Carolina Press,1984

*** Another search strategy for primary sources is to use a publication date range to focus results:

(immigra* OR foreign*) (health* OR disease* OR medical OR medicine) [keyword] Published 1870-1920= 29 results

Results include: Medical problems of immigration: Being the papers and their discussion presented at the XXXVII annual meeting of the American academy of medicine, held at Atlantic City, June 1, 1912. Full text in Hathi Trust.

Digital Source Collections on Medical History

Cholera Online: A Modern Pandemic in Texts and Images
Organized by the U. S. National Library of Medicine
Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics
Created by Harvard University Library, the collection provides information on diseases and epidemics worldwide and is organized around significant “episodes” of contagious disease. Primary source materials, including digitized copies of books, serials, pamphlets, incunabula, and manuscripts—a total of more than 500,000 pages, are featured. Many contain visual images, such as plates, engravings, maps, charts, broadsides, and other illustrations.
Medicine in the Americas, 1610-1920: A Digital Library
Important resource offering over 11, 000 texts, many rare and hard to access, which have been digitized for researchers. Go to the search screen to find primary source material by subject and by date range.
Patients' Voices in Early 19th Century Virginia
Letters by patients and their families addressed to Dr. James Carmichael and his son, Dr. Edward Carmichael.

Digital Collections of Older Books

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) This link opens in a new window
The DPLA allows you to search millions of photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more from libraries, archives, and museums around the United States. Each record links to the original object on the library or other content provider's website.
HathiTrust
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HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world. Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges are members of HathiTrust. Click on "Log In" and select your college for full access.
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The Internet Archive is a non-profit organization that is building an Internet library, with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format. The Internet Archive includes more than 300,000 texts, as well as audio, moving images, software and archived web pages. A good source for books printed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including many travel accounts.

Major Historical Primary Source Collections

American Magazine and Newspaper Articles from the 19th and Early 20th Centuries

American Periodicals Series Online
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Search through 1,800 magazines and journals published in the United States between 1740-1940. Includes early scientific publications, trade journals, popular magazines such as Ladies' Home Journal, and journals such as Puck, The Dial, and McClure's.
Accessible Archives
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Contains full-text primary resource materials in American history including newspapers, magazines, and genealogical records originally only offered on microfilm. Covers 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.
Eight Centuries
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Includes over seventy seminal as well as lesser known contemporary indexes to English-language publishing prior to 1930. Access is by genre: 1. Multi-title Periodical Indexes (e.g., Poole's, Legal, Religion, Scientific Papers, etc.); 2. Book Indexes; 3. Newspaper Indexes; 4. Complete Individual Periodical Indexes (e.g., Harper's, Atlantic Monthly,etc.); 5. US Patents; Hansard's; US and UK Historical Government Documents
American Broadsides & Ephemera: Series I
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Offers fully searchable facsimile images of approximately 15,000 broadsides (1820-1900) and 15,000 pieces of ephemera (1760 -1900) from the American Antiquarian Society collection. Subjects range from contemporary accounts of the Civil War, unusual occurrences and natural disasters to official government proclamations, tax bills and town meeting reports. Material types include clipper ship sailing cards, early trade cards, bill heads, theater and music programs, stock certificates, menus and invitations documenting civic, political and private celebrations.
Early American Imprints: Series II, Shaw-Shoemaker (1801-1819)
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Covers American history and literature from the colonial period to the eighteenth century. Provides full-text digitization of the Early American Imprints microform set, Series II (1801-1819). Covering every aspect of American life during the early decades of the United States.
America's Historical Newspapers
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Search through 2,000+ historical newspapers published in the United States between 1690-1922. Includes publications from all 50 states, large cities and small towns, and a mix of major newspapers and titles with smaller circulations.
Chronicling America This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text access to newspaper pages from 1900 to 1910 and abstracts about American newspapers published between 1690 to the present.

Guide to Historical Newspapers Online
This guide, created by Nick Okrent at the University of Pennsylvania Library links to online newspaper archives by state in the United States.

American Memory This link opens in a new window
Provides information on, and access to, digitized versions of primary-source collections on American history and culture, including photographs, documents, sound recordings, and motion pictures.

Books from the Philips Wing Mezzanine

An Essay on Diseases Incidental to Literary and Sedentary Persons. with Proper Rules for Preventing their Fatal Consequences. and Instructions for Their Cure
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By S. A. Tissot and published in 1768.
Tales of the Deaf and Dumb, with Miscellaneous Poems
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By John R. Burnet and published in 1835.
Intermarriage: or the Mode in Which and the Causes Why, Beauty, Health and Intellect, Result from Certain Unions, and Deformity, Disease and Insanity. from Others: Demonstrated by delineations of the structure and forms, and description
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By Alexander Walker and published in 1839.
How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York
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By Jacob A. Riis and published in 1890. Located in the Phillips Wing Photo Annex. Please ask a librarian for access.
A Brief History of the Movement to Abolish the Slums of Philadelphia and Provide Decent Homes for the Poor
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This is a compilation of reports and news articles which was published in 1893.
Opium: England's Coercive Policy and Its Disastrous Results in China and India: The spread of opium-smoking in America
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By John Liggins and published in 1882.