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News from the Archive

How Dr. Cooley Changed Heart Surgery

Sandra Yates Archivist & Special Collections Librarian On November 18, 2016 the Texas Medical Center lost one of its most renowned pioneers in medicine. Dr. Denton A. Cooley revolutionized cardiovascular surgery, transforming open heart surgery from one of the most high-risk and high-mortality medical procedures to a low-risk and common life-saving procedure. “… I think […]

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Dr. Bertner’s Tuxedo

Sandra Yates Archivist & Special Collections Librarian File this under “Not Your Typical Day in the Archive.” We are currently standardizing how materials are stored in the archive, which means rehousing materials in standard document boxes or relocating oversize materials to the oversize section. Our intern, Albert Duran, began rehousing a few oversize boxes in […]

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Houston and the Fight Against Tuberculosis

This little bungalow at 806 Bagby St first opened in 1913 as the Free Clinic for the Houston Anti-Tuberculosis League. The organization had a clinic or offices there until 1957 when they moved to a new building on Dallas Avenue. [IC 034 San Jacinto Lung Association records, Box 5, P-921, McGovern Historical Center, Texas Medical Center Library.]

Sandra Yates Archivist and Special Collections Librarian I spent the last couple of weeks processing the records of the San Jacinto Lung Association. It’s a small collection, only 12 boxes, that includes correspondence, tuberculosis statistics, scrapbooks, Christmas seals, and photographs of the organization’s history, community services, staff, and administration from 1911 and into the 1980s. […]

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Rice Students Tour the Archive

Sandra Yates Archivist and Special Collections Librarian On Thursday, September 1, 2016, a class from Rice University toured the McGovern Historical Center. The students were from Sophia Hsu’s class, “Literature and Public Health,” which is part of the new medical humanities curriculum out of Rice’s Humanities Research Center. During their visit, the class was introduced […]

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The TMC Flatiron that was not to be.

1966: “Bonanza” was in color[1], the shift dress was coming into vogue[2], the Beatles were singing improbably about being paperback writers[3], and international outer space law was well on its way to becoming reality[1]. The Library was considering an addition. The front would remain conventional enough . . . . . . but the back […]

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To Space! Soviet Space Poster

Sandra Yates Archivist & Special Collections Librarian Keeping with the theme of the 1960s (see previous post), I made a very interesting find in the archive this week. It is a 1960 Soviet propaganda poster by the artist Nikolai Litvinov. It’s part of the Philip S. Hench, MD papers. This collection consists of Dr. Hench’s […]

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The TMC Library in 1961

Sandra Yates Archivist and Special Collections Librarian The TMC Library has been located in the Jesse H. Jones Library Building since the building opened in 1954. Below are promotional images of the library’s interior and facilities from 1961. It is interesting to see how much the library has changed in 55 years. For one thing, […]

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Dr. Jared E. Clarke & the Library

Sandra Yates Archivist and Special Collections Librarian As the centennial year of the Texas Medical Center Library comes to a close, we at the McGovern Historical Center have found a fitting send off. In February 1974, Don Macon interviewed Dr. Jared E. Clarke for the Texas Medical Center Historical Resources Project. The goal of the […]

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Voice of Bertner

Sandra YatesArchivist and Special Collections Librarian Bertner Avenue runs north and south through the heart of the Texas Medical Center. And at 1.4 miles long, it is one of the longer streets in the TMC. It starts in the north at Baylor College of Medicine and John Freeman Boulevard and ends in the south at […]

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