This month we are traveling to the East Coast and visiting Lake Minnewaska in New York!
Minnewaska State Park Preserve is located in Ulster County and spans 22, 275 acres. The park overlooks the Catskill Mountains and is known for its hiking and biking trails, along with swimming, snowshoeing, and picnicking. Historically, the property was known for much more.
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This month we are visiting French Lick Springs, Indiana.
The first inn and hotel was built around 1832 – 1845 when Thomas Boweles, a physician, purchased the land near the mineral springs and opened it to visitors during the summer months. The hotel has had renovations, partially because of fires and ownership.
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This month we are visiting Florida! Florida has had a large tourist industry and has been a popular place for resorts because of its year-long warmth and coastal views of the ocean since the early 20th century. In both summer and winter Florida, became an escape for the sickness and bustle of the city for those afflicted with chronic conditions like rheumatism and nervousness or those with tuberculosis.
Dr. E.M. Hale of Chicago promised Florida as a “Favored region for neurasthenics…broken down in mind and body from the intense strain of business and social demands of the Northern States.” A favored spot was the southwest gulf coast, which tended to get more breezes, making for a more comfortable climate. The pleasant climate leads to a greater number of fruits and vegetables at lower costs than you may see in colder states.
– by Sabrina Bocanegra, Archives intern
Having had some hands-on experience in archives before I started the Library and Information Science (LIS) program at Drexel University, I waited until towards the end of the program to search for some more professional experience. Of course I had visited the Mütter Museum several times in the past. However, not until I started the program had I visited the Historical Medical Library on two separate occasions for class assignments. After those assignments, I became pretty familiar with the Library and knew that I wanted to be an intern at some point before I reached the end of the program. I was pleased to hear that Chrissie had an archives intern position available during my 2nd to last quarter at Drexel.
On my first day, I jumped right into the collection I decided to tackle, which at the time was described as the Committee on Museum papers. My experience as a volunteer in the archives department of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and my coursework in a few archives courses made me feel a little bit more confident about processing this collection.
– by Ashley Lazevnick*
In one of the most influential essays on the artist Georgia O’Keeffe—published in the 1922 issue of Vanity Fair—the art critic Paul Rosenfeld made a vivid comparison between surgical procedures and her creative method:
The painter appears able to move with the utmost composure and awareness amid sensations so intense they are wellnigh insupportable, and so rare and evanescent the mind faints in seeking to hold them; and, here, in the regions of the spirit….[she seems] to sever with the delicacy and swiftness of the great surgeon aplunge in the entrails of a patient.[i]
Rosenfeld was not the only writer to pick up on the surgical qualities of O’Keeffe’s abstract paintings (Fig. 1); among dozens of others, Alexander Brook identified a pointed asepsis in her works that “seem all to be transfixed by an absolutely clean dagger that pierces neatly and hits a vital place.”[ii] And O’Keeffe was just one of several modernists that merited this analogy. Guillaume Apollinaire observed that “Picasso studies an object like a surgeon dissecting a corpse,” while Walter Benjamin characterized the cinematographer as a surgeon, for whom cutting exposed a more trenchant reality than could be achieved by a painter.[iii]
It was this uncanny collection of metaphors that brought me to the Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. What was going on in the history of surgery during this period—I wondered—that would elicit such widespread comparisons between surgical science and the arts? What popular connotations or visual imagery would have informed such critics? Did the specialized literature—though unknown to many of these figures—contradict or enhance the metaphors they used? During my time at the Library, I consulted a wide range of materials, including trade journals, manuals of surgery, and—most stunningly—the collection of medical illustrations done by Hermann Faber and his son, Erwin Faber. It became quickly apparent that the metaphor with which I was dealing was not simply unidirectional; during the same period, surgeons were being thought of as artists—often compared to painters, draftsman, or etchers—while the highly skilled illustrations attested to the enmeshed pursuits of artistic representation, scientific accuracy, and even beauty.[iv]
– by Allie Shanafelter, Archives intern
Nearing the end of my time in the Information and Library Science program at Drexel University, I realized that I had been taught theory but did not have very much hands-on experience working in special collections or archives. So, I decided it was time to find an internship. I had heard about the Historical Medical Library during one of my courses at Drexel and was already familiar with the associated museum. I was very excited to begin my internship at the Historical Medical Library in mid-April. I was given the daunting task of processing the College of Physicians of Philadelphia’s continuing education records which date from the early 70s to the early 80s.
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Are you still unsure of where to go for summer vacation? The Medical Trade Ephemera Collection at The Historical Medical Library may have some suggestions for you! Enjoy our suggestions over the next few months!
This month we are going to look at the New Jersey shore destination, Avon-by-the-Sea, often called simply “Avon” by locals. The Jersey Shore became a popular Victorian vacation spot for visitors from both Philadelphia and New York City. By 1878, Long Branch, Asbury Park, and Ocean Grove drew people to the beach every summer.