Medicine and Healthcare
The history of medicine, healthcare, medical education, and nursing is well documented in the library with over 100 manuscript collections that document the history of hospitals, physicians, nurses, battlefield medicine, and health funding throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The collections include the records of professional organizations for doctors, dentists, and nurses, and the personal papers of prominent physicians and nurses. Several hospitals have donated their historical records to WRHS upon closing, including Windsor Hospital, St. Luke’s Hospital, and Mt. Sinai Hospital. Early efforts to establish health insurance plans, free medical clinics, birth control clinics, and other innovative healthcare options are well documented. Printed histories of medicine and nursing in Cleveland, along with the proceedings of healthcare symposia and the newsletters of medical organizations are available as well. Early efforts by the city of Cleveland to care for its sickest and most vulnerable citizens are also documented. Also documented are the earliest examples of healthcare conversion foundations that were created in the wake of hospital closures.