First mention

History is often focused on the first instance, the first mention in order to identify when something happened and how it relates to what followed. The New York Times offers a column ‘First Mention‘ that uses its own archives of news articles to determine when something was first reported. This isn’t too different from the way the Oxford English Dictionary traces the etymology of a word to its modern meaning.

As more and more documents are transferred to a digital format, our understanding of the ‘first’ of anything will become more accurate.

As an example, in the spring of 1954, the beginnings of open heart surgery took a major step forward at the University of Minnesota. A team of surgeons including C. Walt Lillehei, Richard Varco, Morley Cohen, and Herbert Warden developed and implemented a new technique called cross circulation.

On April 30th the University News Service held a news conference and issued a corresponding press release heralding the new achievement. Pushed out to the national media, the story of Dr. Lillehei’s success soon became a popular print and television phenomenon.

Historically, this was a major accomplishment in the world of surgery and captured the world’s attention.

From a digital archives perspective, we are now able to re-live those early first moments as presented to the public by locating the procedure’s first mention.

In addition to the New York Times’ pay service, Time.com offers free online access to their articles dating back to 1923. A simple search easily retrieves the May 10, 1954 announcement of cross circulation. Google’s News Archive Search also offers the ability to discover multiple articles on the subject from news sources across the country.

Closer to home, the University Digital Conservancy, the digital archives for the University of Minnesota, provides online access to the original news release on cross circulation issued at 2 PM on April 30, 1954.

There are even some remnants of film surviving from the press conference that have transitioned from analog to digital format. This may not be on par with today’s Driven to Discover videos but it surely captivated the interest of viewers at the time.

Tracking down these first mentions usually provide other insights that historical researchers are unaware of. For instance, until Herbert Warden started the pump in the above video, I had no idea that cross circulation was a LOUD technology; something akin to an air compressor in the operating room.


What did this place used to be?

From time to time, I get questions about what a certain office, location, or building use to be prior to its current function. These are always fun to answer and usually provide a sense of institutional history to the person who asked the question.

img0148.jpgA recent donation by the AHC Office of Facilities & Capital Planning to the archives has made this task even easier. Pictured is a 239 page listing of each room and its use in the health sciences complex from February 1982. The document, titled “Current Assignment of Health Science Space: Detail by Building and Room,” is particularly helpful because it provides information on how the Mayo Memorial Building served as both a patient care facility as well as research/office space prior to the construction of the new hospital in 1986.

A few examples include:

In 1982 Room #602 in Children’s Rehab Center was a faculty office. Today it is my office.

In 1982 Rooms #605-607C in Mayo were Psychiatry faculty offices located near patient rooms. Today it is the Medical School Dean’s office.

In 1982 395A Mayo was a Coffee Shop. Today it is the AHC Office of Communications office.

With this handy reference tool, feel free to ask “What did this place used to be?”


Questions, questions

As part of the History Project, I assist others in using archival materials to answer questions and conduct research. People who use the archives are undergraduates, grad students, staff, faculty, administrators, scholars from other institutions, and the general public.

Email & phone inquiries are the most popular methods of contacting me but the occasional letter or drop-in happens as well.

Using the archives and asking questions are free of charge and open to anyone. Some questions are easy to answer while others require time to review materials and dig a little deeper. And, sometimes a definitive answer cannot be found (although hopefully enough information can be obtained to at least support a conclusion).

A few examples of recent reference questions and the answers are below. Perhaps you where wondering the same thing. . .

Question: Could you verify for me that Powell Hall could have been a place where families might have stayed when they had family members in the hospital?

img0145.jpgAnswer: Yes. Powell Hall served a variety of purposes from its dedication in 1933 to its demolition in 1981. Powell Hall was primarily, and is most known for being, a residence hall for nursing students. During its last two decades it also provided dormitory housing for women from across campus, housed administrative office space for the School of Public Health, and was used as a resting space for on-call hospital staff. In the 1970s, families who traveled to the Twin Cities to be close to a family member at the University Hospitals had the opportunity to stay at the “Powell Hall motel as a convenience for patients and their relatives.”

Question: I am looking for information about the establishment of a Learning Resource Center for the health sciences in the 1970s. It was one of the first in the nation to be housed within a biomedical library.

img0146.jpgAnswer: Yes, there is information related to the establishment of the Learning Resource Center (originally known as the Instructional Resource Center) for the health sciences, the precursor to the AHC Learning Commons, at the archives. In 1968 a subcommittee for long-range planning for the health sciences investigated the programmatic & spaces needs of a learning resource center. In 1970 a prototype center was established in Diehl Hall by the Medical School in conjunction with the Bio-Medical Library. A sampling of documentation related to this subcommittee originally chaired by Dr. Ramon M. Fusaro is available in the digital archives.

Question: Where were the original operating rooms in Elliot Memorial Hospital?

img0147.jpgAnswer: The exact answer to this question still eludes me but trying to answer it has been a very enjoyable process. Elliot Memorial Hospital was dedicated in September of 1911 as the first university teaching hospital. In subsequent years it was expanded to include the Todd and Christian wings and the Eustis Children’s Hospital. In 1954 this U-shaped configuration served as the east, south, and west sides of the new Mayo Memorial Building.

I have looked at original blueprints from 1911 although they mostly depict external details, reviewed floor plans from the late 1950s after the completion of the Mayo Memorial Hospital, and walked the halls. I’ve spoken with faculty and staff who have some insight but to no avail. Although I have not exhausted my sources, evidence indicates space on the 5th and 6th floors could have contained an observational gallery and sky lights that would have overseen the surgical room. Hopefully more on this to come.

Question: I was told that the archives has faculty lists for the Urology service–right? I don’t need salary or any other info, only a list of those with title of assistant professor or higher after 1966.

Answer: There are a variety of sources to try and determine faculty lists, however, one of the easiest sources to use are the course catalogs and bulletins for undergraduate, graduate, professional, and non-degree programs. Within the description of each school and program there is almost always a list of affiliated faculty by their rank. Most bulletins were published on a biannual basis and may miss a name or two but are generally considered reliable in their accuracy. The bulletins date from 1871 to the present. A print set is available at the University Archives. Most of the bulletins from 1871 through the 1940s are also available online.

Have a question you’d like to ask? Have a better answer to any of the above? Please, feel free to contact me.


A look back, then ahead, & back again

“As this decade begins, there is no shortage of challenges and opportunities for the Academic Health Center. All of the issues – cost containment, access, managed care, an aging population, facilities and equipment replacement, educational reform, and further development of the team approach to health care – require increased collaboration in the Health Center and within the University.”

This statement is not the current outlook in 2010, rather the look forward from 1990.

The above quote is from the report “Health Sciences at Minnesota: A Look Back and a Look Ahead” (Sept. 1990). It documents the administrative history of the AHC during its first twenty years and describes the changes in both the health needs of the state of Minnesota and teaching health care in higher education.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Academic Health Center. Documents such as this help identify the AHC’s passage over time and allow readers to place historical mile markers along the way of its development.

While reading this report, certainly many will consider 1990 as the recent past and 1970 less so. Yet, today the AHC is different than it was in 1990. In fact the AHC of 1990 is much closer in structure and governance to its earlier self of 1970.

As it looks far forward into the future, the report tries to imagine how individuals will get their health information in the year 2000. The role of personal computers, self-care, and prevention strategies are all forecasted. In many ways, the later part of twentieth century focused on what promises the twentieth first century would bring. This report is one such document. Unlike some of the preceding forecasts of the future of health sciences, this review of challenges and opportunities is on trajectory to intersect with its future to create a present that has now become our past.

Read the report in full below. Unfortunately, the listed attachments were not saved.

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A home for Dr. Robert Meyer

In the February 13, 1939 issue of Time Magazine, an article described the plight of Jewish physicians in Germany. The Nazi government revoked their licenses and asked many to leave the country all together. The response in the United States included a fear by some that emigrating physicians would compete with U.S. doctors while others created support networks to find homes for their European counterparts.

During the spring of 1939, Dr. John L. McKelvey received notice from Germany that his colleague and mentor, Dr. Robert O. Meyer, would soon become one of the displaced. Dr. McKelvey, who became the first full-time department head for obstetrics and gynecology the previous year, set out to secure Dr. Meyer a position at the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Meyer, a world renowned pathologist, had a full career in Germany. In 1935, at the age of seventy-one, the Nazi government relieved him of his position at his university. With support of his colleagues he remained unofficially on staff and continued to conduct research and collect consultation fees. In December of 1938 the Nazi Ministry of the Interior informed him he would no longer be able to remain in Germany.

By the end of May 1939, Dr. McKelvey secured approval from Dean Diehl and President Ford as well as the Board of Regents to send an official letter of offer to Dr. Meyer. Funding for the position came from a variety of sources. The primary source was the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Medical Scientists (New York) who provided $1,500 per year for two years. The American Gynecological Society and its members provided $1,309. The Manhattan Research Foundation provided $500. Various friends and associates raised $648. Additional funds raised from lectureship fees added to the overall amount needed to fund his research position. The total of this revenue established the Robert Meyer Clinical Associate Professorship Fund in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Minnesota.

On September 1, 1939, Dr. Meyer, then seventy-five years old, and his wife planned to fly out of Berlin but could not due to the Nazi invasion of Poland. Instead, they took a train to the Netherlands to meet their ship to the U.S. After a brief stay in New York, they arrived in Minneapolis on September 21.

From 1939 until 1947 Dr. Meyer actively participated in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology as a researcher. He also worked with the Minnesota State Board of Health as a part-time obstetrics pathologist with their home deliver training.

Dr. Meyer passed away at the age of eighty-three in 1947 after having retired from the University of Minnesota in June. Before he died he wrote the Autobiography of Dr. Robert Meyer: A Short Abstract of a Long Life serialized in the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences.

Several documents related to the establishment of the Robert Meyer Fund and Dr. McKelvey’s letter offering Dr. Meyer the position at the University of Minnesota are available below.

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Soft drinks and polio

Soft drinks rarely get positive marks for health benefits. In fact soda consumption is linked to increase risks of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, tooth decay, obesity, and most recently pancreatic cancer according to a recent University of Minnesota study.

But have soft drinks taken the blame for diseases without any clearly linked evidence? Internet rumors include carbon dioxide poisoning due to over consumption and deaths resulting from mixing soda and certain candies that create a combustible combination.

Yet, targeting soft drinks is not a new phenomenon.

In the late 1940s polio continued to elude researchers and their ability to isolate the virus and create an effective vaccine. At the University of Minnesota a team of medical scientists funded by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (now March of Dimes) worked to better understand the disease and search for treatments and a cure. This group known as the Minnesota Poliomyelitis Research Committee included such notables as Ancel Keys (physiological hygiene), Cecil Watson (medicine), Elexious T. Bell (pathology), Ernst Gellhorn (neurophysiology), Irvine McQuarrie (pediatrics), Raymond Bieter (pharmacology), Gaylord Anderson (public health), Berry Campbell (anatomy), A.B. Baker (neurology), and Maurice Visscher (physiology) as its chair.

The committee’s focus on such a widely feared and often misunderstood disease resulted in a deep public interest in their progress. Letters to the committee offering advice, theories, and potential solutions were common.

Suggestions received included dropping DDT on the city of Minneapolis by airplane to kill the virus,looking at the public health menace of dog feces in yards and parks as a transmitter of the virus, and recognizing the unfettered spread of world capitalism as a proponent of the disease (this letter also included a card to join the Socialist Party).

Also included in the committee’s files are two letters from a St. Paul chiropractor who puts the blame squarely on the popular consumption of soft drinks. Written at the end of 1946 the letters blame the chemicals included in the drinks and the government for ignoring the issue. The author theorizes the increase of polio corresponds to warmer weather when more soft drinks are consumed and concludes, “I am sure it is the soft drinks that is causing polio.”

Read the letters below.

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To honor a president

img0141.jpgIn honor of Presidents Day this week, it seems appropriate to look at one of our own university presidents and the history behind the naming of the Malcolm Moos Health Sciences Tower.

Dedicated in 1971 as Unit A Health Sciences Tower, the building was the first in the planned complex of health science facilities that would create functional administrative and laboratory space twenty-two-stories high above the Twin Cities campus.

In February 1980, the Board of Regents discussed the need to appropriately honor President Emeritus Moos by naming a building on campus after him. Malcolm Moos, the tenth president of the University of Minnesota and the first graduate of the university to hold the position, served as president from 1967 to 1974. The Regents suggested Unit A as a way to recognize the administrative reorganization and physical expansion of the health sciences during his tenure. Then president C. Peter Magrath followed by requesting Dr. Lyle French, Vice President for Health Sciences, to formally nominate the name change to the Honors Committee.

After the building’s original dedication, opinion regarding potential naming opportunities proliferated. Suggestions of people to honor included Dr. Gaylord Anderson, Dr. Elexius Bell, Dr. William Crawford, Dr. Charles Hewitt, Dr. Henry Michelson, Dr. Maurice Visscher, and Dr. Cecil J. Watson. Even after the Regents suggested Moos as an appropriate name, some thought it did not follow the established guidelines for naming a building after a president. Specifically, the building did not serve a general university purpose.

In January 1982, Malcolm Moos passed away at the age of 65.

That April, the Regents unanimously approved a resolution to rename the building and on May 13, 1983 of the following year a name changing ceremony took place.

In 2005, the Regents renamed a second health sciences building to honor the thirteenth University of Minnesota president. The Basic Sciences and Biomedical Engineering Building (BSBE) became Nils Hasselmo Hall.


Theodore A. Olson papers

The AHC Archives project is happy to announce the availability of the Theodore A. Olson papers.

img0140.jpgTheodore Alexander Olson attended the University of Minnesota earning a degree in biology in 1926 and worked as an instructor in Entomology.

He resigned from the University in 1928 and began working for the Minnesota State Board of Health (Minnesota Department of Health). While at the State Board of Health as an associate biologist, Olson conducted research at the Harvard Biological Laboratories.

In 1938 he rejoined the University of Minnesota as an Assistant Professor in Preventative Medicine and Public Health. During World War II, Olson served with the Seventh Service Command Headquarters from 1942 to 1946. After returning to the University, Olson oversaw the establishment of a teaching and research facility in sanitation biology in the newly organized School of Public Health.

Olson’s early post-War research focused on the transmission of human pathogens via cockroaches as disseminators of Salmonella and other diseases. In 1956, Olson’s research focus shifted to freshwater pollution and the environmental quality of Lake Superior. This change realigned Olson’s work with his earlier freshwater research while at the State Board of Health and Harvard University in the 1930s.

Theodore Olson retired as Professor Emeritus School of Public Health from the University of Minnesota in June 1973. He passed away in 2002 at the age of 97.

The collection contains correspondence, reports, and publications of Theodore A. Olson, including material related to the environmental water studies of Lake Superior in the 1950s and 1960s. There is also a later edition of his “The Scientific Vocabulary” dictionary, a popular resource for graduate students in Professor Olson’s courses.


Health sciences ahead

img0138.jpgToday most describe the schools, colleges, and programs of the Academic Health Center as sharing a common research and applied interest in the health sciences.

Yet, in this 1968 memo the concept of health sciences required quotes to offset it for the reader. At that time, the University of Minnesota had a College of Medical Sciences that consisted of the Medical School, School of Nursing, and School of Public Health with a dean of the Medical School and directors of nursing and public health who reported to the dean. There was also a College of Pharmacy and a School of Dentistry that each reported directly to Central Administration. The College of Veterinary Medicine also reported to Central Administration while maintaining close ties to both the College of Medical Sciences and the College of Agriculture.

In the memo, Dean Robert Howard announces to the faculty of the College of Medical Sciences the framework of an applied “health sciences concept” at the University while maintaining the existing administrative structure.

It emphasizes the importance of “interrelatedness” and “interdependence” in the existing programs and the need to identify other programs “that are indeed ‘health-science-wide’ in scope.” It could be argued the term “health sciences” preceded the concepts of interdisciplinary and interprofessional programs and thus makes its description somewhat difficult and anachronistic.

Dean Howard states that the projected outcome of the proposal would be twofold. First, it would re-brand the existing University of Minnesota Medical Center as the University of Minnesota Health Sciences Center. And second, it would “initiate an intensive study of the administrative structure.” This second point leads ultimately to the reorganization of the health sciences and the formation of what is now the Academic Health Center in July of 1970.

Read the full 1968 memo below.

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Tools of the trade

img0134.jpgA lot can be done in the archives with a pencil, acid-free folders and a few boxes. However, there are times when different tools are required. In this case a hammer and screwdriver.

My recent work includes sorting through records from the Vice President of Health Sciences office acquired over the past 30-some years. The material consists of well over 100 boxes and spans six administrations of the Academic Health Center.

img0135.jpgAs part of this review, an intriguing locked metal box surfaced. Without a key to be found, I had to use a different tool set, quite literally a tool set, to open it.

The box was locked for obvious reasons. A label taped to the front read: “VPHS Search 1981-82.” Presumably, its contents would include applicant information and search committee materials.

The 1981-1982 search for a new Vice President of Health Sciences was the first open search for the position. Created in 1970 with the reorganization of the health sciences by the Board of Regents, the position’s first incumbent was Dr. Lyle French, whom the Regents appointed as acting Vice President in July 1970 and then as full VP in March 1971. Dr. French served for eleven years before stepping down. The successor to the position was Dr. Neal Vanselow in September 1982.

img0136.jpgOn the Monday before Thanksgiving, I managed to pop the lock and open it in front of a small audience at the project’s advisory committee meeting. Luckily, it was not my ‘Al Capone’s vault‘ moment. Locked for nearly 27 years, the metal container and its contents were now part of the historical record.

The box contained applicant files as well as notes generated by the search committee. Much of this information is governed by University of Minnesota records management and human resource policies and must follow certain retention schedules to satisfy privacy requirements.

img0137.jpgFortunately, the box also contained material that related directly to the development of the position and documents the search process. This information provides insight into the needs of the University and the health sciences at that particular point in time. These items will be retained as part of the institutional record in the archives.