TRAVEL GRANT: Research at Yale's Cushing/Whitney Medical Historical Library

Melissa Grafe Discussion

The Historical Library of the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University is pleased to announce its ninth annual Research Travel Award for use of the Historical Library.

The Ferenc Gyorgyey Research Travel Grant is available to historians, medical practitioners, and other researchers who wish to use the collections of the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library. In any given year the award is up to $1,500 for one week of research.  Funds may be used for transportation, housing, food, and photographic reproductions. The award is limited to residents of the United States and Canada. 

The Historical Library holds one of the country’s largest collections of rare medical books, journals, prints, photographs, and pamphlets. It was founded in 1941 by the donations of the extensive collections of Harvey Cushing, John F. Fulton, and Arnold C. Klebs.  Special strengths are the works of Hippocrates, Galen, Vesalius, Boyle, Harvey, Culpeper, Haller, Priestley, and S. Weir Mitchell, and works on anesthesia, and smallpox inoculation and vaccination. The Library owns over fifty medieval and renaissance manuscripts, Arabic and Persian manuscripts, and over 300 medical incunabula.  The notable Clements C. Fry Collection of Prints and Drawings has over 2,500 fine prints and drawings from the 15th century to the present on medical subjects, and the Library currently holds over 10,000 prints, posters, and drawings.  Although the Historical Library does not house the official archives of the Medical School, it does own a number of manuscript collections, most notably the Peter Parker Collection, papers of Harvey Cushing, and the John Fulton diaries and notebooks. The Library also owns an extensive Smoking and tobacco advertising collection, and smaller collections of patent medicine ephemera.

Applicants should send via e-mail or regular mail: A completed application form, a curriculum vitae and a description of the project including the relevance of the collections of the Historical Library to the project, and two references attesting to the particular project. Preference will be given to applicants beyond commuting distance to the Historical Library.  This award is not intended for primary use of special collections in other libraries at Yale.  Applications are due by Sunday, MAY 1st, 2016.  They will be considered by a committee and the candidates will be informed by JUNE 6th, 2016.  For more information, and the application form, please go to: http://library.medicine.yale.edu/historical/us/grant.

Requests for further information should be sent to:
Melissa Grafe, Ph.D.
John R. Bumstead Librarian for Medical History
Head of the Medical Historical Library
Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library
Yale University
P.O. Box 208014
New Haven, CT 06520-8014
Telephone: 203- 785-4354
Fax: 203-785-5636
E-mail: melissa.grafe@yale.edu