Duke Medical Center Archive Blog

Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature

Medical Center Library & Archives - Level 3 (NLM) & Level 1 (MCL&A) 

NLM Exhibit on Display until June 16, 2018 

The Medical Center Library is hosting “Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature,” a six-banner traveling exhibition. Developed and produced by the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, it displays the abiding relevance of the Frankenstein story to contemporary questions about science and technology. Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel explores individual and societal responsibility through its discussion of scientific advancement and medical ethics. 

Category: News, Collection Highlights

Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature

Medical Center Library & Archives - Level 3 (NLM) & Level 1 (MCL&A) 

NLM Exhibit on Display until June 16, 2018 

The Medical Center Library is hosting “Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature,” a six-banner traveling exhibition. Developed and produced by the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, it displays the abiding relevance of the Frankenstein story to contemporary questions about science and technology. Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel explores individual and societal responsibility through its discussion of scientific advancement and medical ethics. 

Category: News, Collection Highlights

On April 6, 1953, the Veterans Administration Hospital opened here in Durham, NC. The Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center is a part of the federal Veterans Health Administration (VHA) which seeks to provide medical care and services to America’s military Veterans. The origins of the VHA date back to the Civil War when President Abraham Lincoln “authorized the first-ever national soldiers’ and sailors’ asylum to provide medical and convalescent care for discharged members of the Union Army and Navy volunteer forces.”{1}  Today the VHA manages one of the largest health care systems in the world, partners with medical schools across the country to provide training for health professionals, and oversees medical research programs. 

The Durham hospital has grown since it first… MORE

Category: DUMC History

The Medical Center Archives is happy to announce that the J. Leonard Goldner Papers are processed and open for research. The collection documents the professional career of Goldner at Duke University Medical Center (DUMC). Goldner was a lauded Duke Orthopedic surgeon and professor from 1950 to 1988. Types of materials in this collection include correspondence, reprints, newsletters, clippings, programs, certificates, awards, photographs, audiovisual materials, biographical materials, notes, memorabilia, manuscripts, and artwork. The collection contains materials from 1930 to 2013, although the bulk the collection dates from the beginning of Goldner’s career at Duke to his death in 2008.

Goldner… MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

The Medical Center Archives is pleased to announce that the Nick Carter Travel Club Records are processed and open for research. The F. Bayard Carter Society, better known as the “Nick Carter Travel Club,” is an organization associated with Duke’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. The society is named for Duke physician F. Bayard Carter. Carter was professor and chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology from 1931 to 1964. During his tenure, Carter was a beloved mentor to many residents in the department. In 1951, a group of 15 of his former… MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

In honor of Black History Month, our blog this week features Clydie Pugh-Myers, a graduate of the first class of Duke’s licensed practical nursing (LPN) program in 1949.

Duke’s LPN program was established in 1948 as a collaboration of Duke University Hospital, Durham City School, and the North Carolina Department of Vocational Education to train African American nurses. Although 72 women qualified and registered for the program its inaugural year, only 26 would pass the rigorous training and examinations to graduate the following year. The LPN program transferred to the Durham Industrial Education Center, which would later become Durham Technical Community College, in the early 1960s.On January 18, 2006, Jessica Roseberry conducted an oral history interview with Pugh-Myers at her… MORE

Category: Collection Highlights

We are now on Instagram! Follow us @dukemedlibrary. We will be posting historical photographs, fun facts from the history of Duke Medicine, behind-the-scenes looks at archives and library work, information about upcoming events, and much more! 

Please follow us, like our photos, and share with us the types of things that you’d like to see us post. 

Category: News

This week we are celebrating #ColorOurCollections with other libraries, archives, and cultural institutions around the world! This week-long social media initiative was launched by The New York Academy of Medicine Library in 2016. Participating institutions are sharing free coloring pages made using materials from their collections. 

The coloring pages from our collection can be found here. They include two drawings made by Robert Blake, a legendary medical artist at Duke. Along with his illustrations of the… MORE

Category: News, Collection Highlights

This week we are celebrating #ColorOurCollections with other libraries, archives, and cultural institutions around the world! This week-long social media initiative was launched by The New York Academy of Medicine Library in 2016. Participating institutions are sharing free coloring pages made using materials from their collections. 

The coloring pages from our collection can be found here. They include two drawings made by Robert Blake, a legendary medical artist at Duke. Along with his illustrations of the… MORE

Category: News, Collection Highlights

The Archives is happy to announce that the Mary Thomson Champagne Records are processed and available for research. Interested researchers should contact the Medical Center Archivist before use. The collection is organized into the following series: Administrative Records, 1981-2016; Academic Programs and Partnerships, 1979-2016; and Digital Files, 1994-2016. Types of materials in the collections include correspondence, notes, photographs, clippings, newsletters, handbooks, grant applications, reports, charts, speeches, brochures, presentations, meeting minutes, meeting agendas, evaluation forms, curriculum vitae, survey results, and budgets.

Born in 1946, Mary Thomson Champagne received a BSN from San Jose… MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

The Medical Center Archives is happy to announce that the William Longley Papers are processed and open for research. The collections documents the professional career of Longley, a professor and researcher in the Anatomy Department at Duke University Medical School from 1968 to 1988. Types of materials include correspondence, photographic materials, reprints, writings, manuscripts, drafts, clippings, printed materials, research notebooks, and grant materials. The collections also includes a small amount of personal correspondence. Materials range in date from 1941 to 1987.

Longley’s research… MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

If you were to stack every box contained in the Duke Medical Center Archives, it would equal the height of approximately 54 Duke Chapels! While we work hard to arrange and describe the over 11,000 linear feet of materials in our collection, it is both impossible and inadvisable for us to read or catalog every individual piece of paper. As foolish as it is to think that an archivist could possibly know all of the stories held within these collections, it is often tempting to believe that the institutional knowledge accumulated through time in the archives creates an omniscient historian or at least something pretty close. Recently I was reminded that I certainly do not know everything and more importantly that archival research can be a thrilling treasure hunt.  

In preparation… MORE

Category: DUMC History

This is the fourth blog post in a four part series about the Department of Neurosurgery Records and issues archivists confront when accessioning collections. See the following links for Part 1, Part 2, and … MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

The Medical Center Archives is happy to announce that the Eugenia and Samuel Lambeth Papers are processed and open for research. The collection documents the professional careers of wife and husband Eugenia and Samuel Lambeth, as well as also housing personal materials. Types of materials include correspondence, clippings, programs, certificates, diplomas, army records, reprints, travel souvenirs, x-rays, photographic materials, a scrapbook, artwork, memorabilia, and artifacts. Materials range in date from 1925 to 2000.

Eugenia Lambeth received a degree in nursing from Duke University in 1939 and… MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

The Medical Center Archives is happy to announce that the Highland Hospital Records are now open to researchers through a reprocessing project. Highland Hospital, a small, for profit, inpatient mental hospital located in Asheville, North Carolina, was owned and operated by Duke … MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight