Yale Medical Library opening and dedication

The Yale Medical Library (now the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library), an addition to the Sterling Hall of Medicine designed by Grosvenor Atterbury (Yale College 1891), began to be built in late 1939, and was dedicated in a large formal ceremony on June 15, 1941. It was designed in the shape of a Y with the Historical Library in one wing and the General Medical Library in the other. The founders of the library were three physicians, book collectors, and historians of medicine: neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing (Yale College, 1891), then Sterling Professor of Neurology; John Fulton, Sterling Professor of Physiology; and Arnold C. Klebs of Nyon, Switzerland. They had agreed to donate their rare book collections to Yale if Yale would build a place to house them. That offer coalesced with the need of the Medical School to build a larger library located on the Medical School campus for current medical books and journals. The Medical School had a small library but the main collection of medical books and journals was then housed at Sterling Memorial Library. By February 1941, the General Medical Library was open for patrons. The dedication marked the opening of the Historical wing of the Library. Cushing, who had been the main advocate for the library, knew that the Library would be built, but died in October 1939 before the construction began. The year 1941 coincided with the 50th anniversary of Cushing's Yale class of 1891, which donated funds as part of its class gift to decorate the rotunda of the library in commemoration of Cushing.