Coleman Brothers Collection

The collection contains the correspondence between the brothers and Yale-educated physicians Isaac Pearson Coleman and James Beakes Coleman of New Jersey spanning their years at the Medical Institution of Yale College (Yale University School of Medicine) through the beginnings of their respective medical practices in New Jersey; their correspondence with other practitioners and members of their families; extended family correspondence; James Coleman's notes and lectures on phrenology; and a large number of documents including deeds, miscellaneous printed matter, and receipts of Isaac Coleman and his family, the brothers' parents and their ancestors; and 33 photographs of the extended family. (There are no photographs of the Coleman brothers). The letters particularly document Isaac P. Coleman's time at Yale (1829-1832). Notable professional correspondents include preceptors, Dr. Francis A. Ewing of Trenton and Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride, a Philadelphia psychiatrist who had also studied medicine with Nicholas Belleville in Trenton. Medical topics include medical education, anatomy and dissection, New Jersey licensing law, medical treatments, smallpox and vaccination, and phrenology.