PENN History at the Barbara Bates Center for The Study of The History of Nursing

The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of The History of Nursing (CSHN) was established in 1985 to encourage and facilitate scholarship on nursing and health care history in the United States. As a center for research and learning, it maintains a strong connection to its institutional home, Penn's School of Nursing (UP SON). Although the Center collects the personal papers of distinguished UP SON faculty, it does not attempt to be the repository for the School's administrative records. Those institutional records are collected by the University Archives and Records Center (UARC). They include its departments, committees, boards, and senior administrative staff. All institutional records at Penn are administered under the "Protocols" of the University of Pennsylvania Archives and Records Center (UARC).

The personal and professional papers of Claire M. Fagin exemplify the partnership of UARC and CSHN. Dr. Fagin donated her nursing-related papers, both personal and professional, to CSHN. These included her teaching, research and Nursing School Dean's papers. UARC, on the other hand, holds her administrative papers from her one-year term as Interim President of the University (1993-94), as well as other archival records.

Research at the University Archives may carry the scholar to the CSHN. Below are some Penn-related manuscript collections at the CSHN:

Hospitals, Schools of Nursing and Nursing Alumni Associations

• Children's Hospital of Philadelphia School of Nursing, 1897-1987, 13.7 lin. ft.
• Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, 1894-1970, 35.2 lin. ft.
• Philadelphia General Hospital, 1885-1940, 7 reels
• Presbyterian School of Nursing, 1871-1987, 148.1 lin. ft.
• Society of the Alumni of the School of Nursing of the University of Pennsylvania, 1960-1980,  2 lin. ft.

Private operating room, HUP collection

Individuals

• Aiken, Linda H., 1972-1986, 9.8 lin. ft.
• Brunner, Lillian S., 1910-1995, 20.33 lin. ft.
• Capers, Cynthia Flynn, 1978-1982, 0.8 lin. ft.
• Clymer, Mary V., 1886-1889, 0.2 lin. ft.
  
• Emonds, Beverly L., 1965-1981, 0.4 lin. ft.
• Fagin, Claire H., 1926-1991, 11.18 lin. ft.
• Fawcett, Jacqueline M., 2.9 lin. ft.
• Lambertsen, Eleanor C., 1915-1977, 7 lin. ft.
  
• Landis, Nadine, 1930-1988, 21 lin. ft.
• Lynch, Theresa I., 1896-1986, 1.4 lin. ft.
  
• Matthews, Irene, 1933-1985, 0.8 lin. ft.
• McCorkle, Ruth, 1941-1998, 0.4 lin. ft.
• Mereness, Dorothy Ann, 1910-1991, 3.2 lin. ft.
• West, Roberta M., 1886-1937, 10 lin. ft.

Nursing School Deans (left to right): Dorothy Ann Mereness, Claire Fagin, Theresa Lynch

Other Collections of Interest

• National Fund for Medical Education, 1949-1990, 178 lin. ft.

• American Medical Women's Association, 1981, 6 tapes

• Philadelphia General Hospital History Task Force Oral History Project, 1994, 0.4 lin. ft.

Roberta M. West, PGH Collection