Our Archivist has been awarded short-term travel grants from the Francis
Clark Wood Institute for the History of Medicine at The College of
Physicians of Philadelphia and the
Committee for Professional and International Affairs of the Archives and
Records Association (UK and
Ireland) to enable research into the photographic representation of
psychiatric patients using the archival resources of the College’s
Library.
There should be ample scope for this research in the city of Benjamin
Rush, Thomas Kirkbride and Silas Weir Mitchell; and if only the Dorothea
Dix Library and Museum (opened as a reading room for the female
patients of Pennsylvania’s Harrisburg State Hospital, which Dix and
Kirkbride co-founded in 1851) had not closed in 2006, it would have been
the next stop on our Archivist’s itinerary. As matters stand, hopefully
there will be enough time for a ‘Letter from America’ to be written for
publication on this blog in due course.
Photo courtesy of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
