By Tara Sims and Kelsey Koym Breathing Life into History: The Iron Lung and the Fight Against Polio As we prepare to observe World Immunization Week (April 20–26), it’s a powerful moment to pause and reflect—not just on the importance of vaccines today, but on the challenges that shaped our path to this point. […]
We’re very excited to announce that all library annual and other reports in the archive are now available online!!! You can find the report on the McGovern Historical Center collection site and the Texas Medical Center Library digital repository. The links are provided below: https://archives.library.tmc.edu/ic001-s1 https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/library_annualreports/ The history! The graphics! The themes! You won’t believe […]
![[Illustration, p. 74: “Cardiac Clinic: Renal Hypertension” drawing, July/August, 1957, Box 11, Folder 37, IC 094 Medical Arts Publishing Foundation, McGovern Historical Center, Texas Medical Center Library]](https://library.tmc.edu/mcgovern/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2024/04/IC094-heart-illustrations-0604-074_banner-1024x501.jpg)
By Johana Canales, Archives Intern. As archivists discussed recently, the Houston-based Medical Arts Publishing Foundation produced illustrated medical publications like the Cancer Bulletin, Heart Bulletin, and Psychiatric Bulletin. The Foundation’s records began arriving at the McGovern Historical Center in 1992. Since then some of the collection’s medical illustrations had already been digitized, including several complete […]
The Friends of the TMC Library Oral History Project began last year, and the first six interviews and transcripts are available on our collections site. https://archives.library.tmc.edu/ic090-s5 The project seeks to identify, capture, and preserve the histories of those individuals who have made singular contributions to their professions and to the Texas Medical Center (TMC). It […]
By Joy Oria, Archives Intern Almost two hundred items from the Murdina MacFarquhar Desmond, MD papers have been digitized and are now available online. Dr. Desmond (1916-2003) contributed to the fields of pediatrics and neonatology during her long tenure (1948-1986) on the pediatrics faculty of Baylor College of Medicine and service to Jefferson Davis Hospital […]
By Matt Richardson, Archivist and Special Collections Librarian. The McGovern Historical Center invites you to #ColorOurCollections! This week the MHC joins other libraries, archives, and cultural heritage institutions sharing coloring pages created from our historical materials. This is the MHC’s first time joining this annual celebration, which is hosted by The New York Academy of […]
By Matt Richardson, Archivist and Special Collections Librarian. After processing the Lucille Baird papers, we noticed the handful of letters that had been saved weren’t just any old correspondence—they were actually Christmas greetings. The cards and letters came from Robert and Lillie Jolly, who served as Superintendent and Director of the Hospital Training School for […]
By Tara Carron, Archivist and Special Collections Librarian. Recently, the McGovern Historical Collection acquired several items that, as an archivist, I consider to be exciting acquisitions, as they are quite unique in the context of a medical archives: Dr. Denton A. Cooley’s string bass instrument, and two vinyl records wherein Dr. Cooley plays the (very […]
By Tara Carron, Archivist and Special Collections Librarian. While processing the John P. McGovern Collection of Texas Historical Medical Documents, I came across an interesting piece of Republic-era financial history: a beautifully preserved Texas “Redback” banknote. The significance of this curious document nestled within an archival collection primarily comprised of historical medical documents created by […]
![[Black-and-white photograph of Lucile Baird standing between two nurses, 1927. MS247-11, MS 249 Lucile Baird papers, McGovern Historical Center, Texas Medical Center Library]](https://library.tmc.edu/mcgovern/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2023/09/ms249-11_banner-1024x585.jpg)
by Matt Richardson, Archivist and Special Collections Librarian Newly acquired, processed, and digitized! There’s something to be said for small archival collections. For one thing, they present great training opportunities for interns and volunteers.* On top of that, every now and then, they give an archivist the chance to make that rarest of assertions: This […]