George Alder Blumer correspondence

Collection

Call Number: Ms Coll 50

Scope and Contents

These letters to George Alder Blumer are mainly about the American Medico-Psychological Association and the Journal of Insanity. Several of the writers were, like Blumer, administrators of psychiatric hospitals in the United States and abroad.

Dates

1886 - 1951
Majority of material found within 1886 - 1896

Creator

Blumer, G. Alder (George Alder), 1857-1940

Conditions Governing Access

The materials are open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

The letters to George Alder Blumer are in the public domain.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Most of the letters were given by Miss Mary Blumer, daughter of George Alder Blumer, to George Alder Blumer's cousin, George Blumer, former dean of Yale School of Medicine, who gave them to the Historical Library in April 1951. The Osler letters have a different provenance.

Extent

0.25 Linear Feet (1 box)

Language of Materials

English

Catalog Record

A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog

Persistent URL

https://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/med.ms.0050

Additional Description

Abstract

These letters to George Alder Blumer are mainly about the American Medico-Psychological Association and the American Journal of Insanity, edited by Blumer. Several of the writers were, like Blumer, administrators of psychiatric hospitals in the United States and abroad.

Biographical / Historical

George Alder Blumer (also known as G. Alder Blumer) was born in Sunderland, England in 1857. He attended the medical school of the University of Edinburgh for one year before he came to the United States, and completed his medical education at the University of Pennsylvania in 1879. After a year of residency at Lankenau Hospital, Philadelphia, he was offered a position at the New York State Lunatic Asylum in Utica, New York, later the Utica State Hospital. When the superintendent Dr. John P. Gray died in 1886, Blumer assumed the superintendency. Blumer intervened when the New York State Commission on Lunacy threatened to take over theAmerican Journal of Insanity founded by Amariah Brigham in 1844 and owned by the hospital. Blumer arranged for the American Medico-Psychological Association, now the American Psychiatric Association, to purchase the journal, now theAmerican Journal of Psychiatry. Blumer served a number of years as editor. In 1899, he became superintendent of the private Butler Hospital in Providence, R.I., a post he held until his retirement in 1921. He served as president of the American Psychiatric Association in 1903-1904. As an asylum director he became known for his humanitarian treatment of patients.