Nicholas Webb, MSIS
Archivist & Digital Preservation Librarian
(914) 594-4209
nwebb4@nymc.edu
The collections of the New York Medical College Archives include a wide range of material documenting the history of the College, its predecessor and affiliate institutions, and its faculty. The Archives is also responsible for managing the rare books holdings of the Health Science Library and the Library's collection of antique medical and surgical instruments.
The arrangement and cataloging of the Archives is ongoing, and the page below gives an overview of our holdings. Additional detail will be added as collections are processed. Please contact the Archives if you have any questions.
The primary mission of the Archives is to document the history of New York Medical College. It holds a wide range of collections to support this mission:
In addition to the College itself, the Archives has holdings related to its predecessor and affiliate institutions. These include the Flower Hospital, the first teaching hospital owned by a medical college; Flower-Fifth Avenue Hospital, where the College was located from the 1930s through the 1970s; Metropolitan Hospital, the College's longtime municipal affiliate; the college's nineteenth-century clinical affiliates, including the Hahnemann Hospital of Manhattan, the New York Ophthalmic Hospital, and the Laura Franklin Free Hospital for Children; and the New York Medical College and Hospital for Women, a closely affiliated women's college which formally merged with New York Medical College in 1917.
In addition to the institutional records of the College, the Archives holds the personal papers and reprint files of several prominent faculty members. The processing of these collections is ongoing and detailed description of individual collections will be added to this site as collections are processed.
Reflecting the College's origins as a "sectarian" medical school, the Archives holds a significant collection of manuscripts, publications and ephemera documenting the history of homeopathy in the nineteenth century, including the records of several New York State and New York City homeopathic medical societies. Processing of these collections is ongoing.
If you are a faculty member or alumnus interested in donating your papers to the Archives, please contact us.
The holdings of the Archives include a wide range of photographs documenting the history of the College and its affiliates. Scanned copies of these photographs are available for use in publications, presentations and displays. Please contact the Archives if you are interested in historic photographs of the College.
The Archives oversees the rare book collections of the Health Sciences Library, which include a number of volumes with significance to the history of medicine. The bulk of the rare book collection consists of monographs and journals from the nineteenth century. The majority of these holdings are described in the Library catalog, and these catalog records are currently being reviewed for accuracy.
The rare books collection does not circulate. If you are interested in viewing materials from the collection, please contact the Archives beforehand to schedule an appointment, as books may be in storage or in fragile condition.
Please review our Collecting Policy (below) before contacting us regarding a book donation. As a general rule, the Archives avoids accepting donations of recent books with no significant research value, damaged volumes which require conservation treatment, and materials without noteworthy significance to the history of the College or to the history of medicine more broadly.
The holdings of the Archives include a collection of vintage medical instruments from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which are available for use in study and teaching. Please contact the Archives if you are interested in making use of this collection.
The Archives collects material to maintain a comprehensive, accurate and ongoing historical record of New York Medical College while optimizing the use of the Archives’ own resources, which include staff time, supply costs, and the availability of physical and electronic storage space. The Archives accepts material in both physical and electronic formats, including audio and video recordings.
The Archives actively seeks out and solicits the deposit of institutional records produced by New York Medical College and its various schools and departments. The Archives also accepts donations of the personal papers of individuals with a significant connection to New York Medical College, such as faculty and alumni, after consideration of their contents and potential research value.
While the primary mission of the Archives is to document the history of the College, the Archives also collects documentation of the history of NYMC’s major affiliate hospitals and material related to historical subjects that touch on the unique history and mission of New York Medical College.
As a general principle, the Archives does not acquire material which would be closed to research due to privacy regulations (HIPAA and FERPA), copyright concerns, or donor-imposed access restrictions.
Donations of books and vintage medical instruments are evaluated on a case-by-case basis in consideration of the scarcity, condition, provenance and research value of the material. As a general rule, the Archives avoids accepting donations of recent books with no significant research value, damaged volumes which require conservation treatment, and materials without noteworthy significance to the history of the College or to the history of medicine more broadly.
