This Week in the Archives
This friendly feline found their way into the archives when a c.1930s Penn student captured this stunning photo and saved it in their photo album. The rest of the album is filled with pictures that provide a rich glimpse into life in and around Penn in the early 20th century. From the University Archives and Records Center.
April 02, 2024
The last session of our Health, Medicine, and Gender in the Archives workshop is in the books! On March 28th, Assistant University Archivist Jim Duffin, from Penn’s University Archives and Records Center, presented on a set of incredible materials in their collections which document the rich history of healthcare at Penn. From 18th century medical student notebooks to pioneers in medicine, the materials on display raised numerous possibilities for teaching and research here at Penn. A standout item was a c.1930s photo book that belonged to a Penn medical student. In it, they chronicle the people, places, and animals, who helped make their education and training at Penn memorable.
Last week’s workshop at UARC concluded our inaugural workshop series in collaboration with Penn Libraries’ Kislak Center and University Archives and Records Center. The series was designed to reach instructors and students across Penn’s campus who are interested in looking at healthcare and medicine from an interdisciplinary perspective. Each session provided a sample of archival materials from the collections, information on how the materials related to interesting topics in health and gender, and discussed how they could be used in a classroom or research project.
Many thanks to Penn’s GSWS PhD candidate, Matty Hemming, for initially coming to us with an interest in building community and programming around Penn’s healthcare archives. Previous workshops in the series included: (1) Lea Library on the 6th floor of Van Pelt with Kislak Center curator, Alicia Meyer, which displayed an impressive breadth of materials and (2) The Bates Center on floor 2U in Fagin Hall with Center curator, Jessica Martucci, which highlighted the intersections between nursing and a variety of healthcare and gender-relevant topics.
We look forward to running another series like this next year and encourage any Penn graduate students with an interest in the history of healthcare/healthcare humanities to reach out to us!
We are also currently exploring ways that the workshop exhibits from this year might live on in the digital world, providing resources for future teachers, students, and researchers interested in working with these materials–so stay tuned!
