Posters and Prints in the National Library of Medicine
The National Library of Medicine has over 70,000 historical images in its collection, including many on diseases.
Maps and Health
Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America
Among the thousands of area descriptions created by agents of the federal government's Home Owners' Loan Corporation between 1935 and 1940, the one that was written for what is now called the Carver Heights neighhborhood in Savannah, Georgia, stands out. HOLC staff members, using data and evaluations organized by local real estate professionals--lenders, developers, and real estate appraisers--in each city, assigned grades to residential neighborhoods that reflected their "mortgage security" that would then be visualized on color-coded maps. HOLC assumed and insisted that the residency of African Americans and immigrants, as well as working-class whites, compromised the values of homes and the security of mortgages. "Redlining," derived from these color-coded HOLC maps, maps to health inequalities in many cities today. Explore HOLC maps and the larger project through this site.
Free, big databases for downloadable primary sources
Turn to these free online primary sources:
Medical Heritage Library
A consortium of medical libraries, including Yale, have put parts of their collections available online. Over 300,000 freely downloadable primary source books, many from 1780-1923. On the Medical Heritage Library website, under the Content tab, you can find American and State medical society journals.
National Library of Medicine (NLM) Historical Collections
Great primary history of medicine material, including digitized books, images, archives, and moving images (aka movies). Includes the Health Policy and Services Research collection, with reports on health policy.
Internet Archive
Home to a huge variety of resources, including Moving Pictures, for free use. Not limited to history of medicine or urban health, but lots of possible primary sources here. Make sure, if you pick a source from here, that it's uploaded by a library or other institution! You can find movies like Right to Health: Neighborhood Health Centers in Profile, A (1969).
-ALSO look at the Office of Minority Health Resource Center's digitized books on various race related health topics.
Hathi Trust
A huge online repository of freely downloadable books and journals, from a collaboration of libraries including Yale. Not limited to history of medicine or urban health, but lots of possible primary sources here.
Digital Public Library of America
This site pulls in sources and archives (like letters and diaries) from many libraries, museums, and other institutions, as well as big databases like Hathi Trust and Internet Archive. Look at the primary sources sets and exhibitions on broad themes, including race.
Social Welfare History Library
Research materials related to this history include the papers, records and publications of individuals, local volunteer groups, national private organizations, and the state and federal government agencies that have provided and regulated social services. Charity groups and social welfare organizations often work on behalf of people whose voices have not been heard widely in American history. Therefore, the archives of social welfare history serve as a resource for learning more about women, children, minorities, immigrant and refugees, the elderly, the poor and persons with disabilities.
The Grey Literature Report
This database is a comprehensive collection of urban health resources produced by The New York Academy of Medicine between 1999 and 2016. The materials in the Greylit Report database include health and science policy, public health, health of vulnerable and special populations (i.e. children, women, uninsured, elderly) and those areas of general medicine and disease in which the Academy has research interests.
PubMed
PubMed is a huge medical database comprising more than 30 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. PubMed Central is a free digital repository that archives open access full-text scholarly articles that have been published in biomedical and life sciences journals. This includes titles like the Journal for the National Medical Association, which is the major organization representing "interests of physicians and patients of African descent," and the Journal of Urban Health (1998-present. Anything before 1998 is the Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine).
Topical primary source sites
This is a selected list of sites related to topics on the history of medicine and health, with some focus on race and medicine. This is by no means everything!
- American Influenza EncyclopediaThese pages contain the stories of the places, the people, and the organizations that battled the American influenza epidemic of 1918-1919.
- Black Women's Health StudyUntil the 1990’s, most of the studies of women’s health included only small numbers of Black women or none at all. Improving the health of Black women required more knowledge of the causes of these health problems and also more knowledge about how women stay healthy. More knowledge meant more research. The BWHS was begun in 1995 to play a key role in carrying out this research.
- Civil Rights Digital Library.Contains a variety of sources, with a special emphasis on digitized video.
- Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and EpidemicsFrom Harvard Library, "this online collection offers important historical perspectives on the science and public policy of epidemiology today and contributes to the understanding of the global, social–history, and public–policy implications of diseases." Many primary sources related to diseases and epidemics, and several related to race and medicine.
- Densho Digital RepositoryHear the story of the Japanese American incarceration experience from those who lived it, and find thousands of historic photographs, documents, newspapers, letters and other primary source materials from immigration to the WWII incarceration and its aftermath. Includes medical sources.
- The History of VaccinesThe History of Vaccines site, created by The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, provides a living, changing chronicle of the compelling history of vaccination, from pre-Jennerian variolation practices, to the defeat of polio in the Western Hemisphere, to cutting-edge approaches to novel vaccines and vaccine delivery. The site aims to increase public knowledge and understanding of the ways in which vaccines, toxoids, and passive immunization work, how they have been developed, and the role they have played in the improvement of human health.
The site also discusses some of the controversies about vaccination and some of the challenges, difficulties, and tragic events that have occurred in the use of vaccines. - Image Archive on the American Eugenics MovementAn older site from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, one of the major centers of American eugenics, this collection includes primary sources including letters, photographs, publications, and more.
- Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930Documenting voluntary immigration to the United States from the signing of the Constitution to the start of the Great Depression. Includes material on immigration and medicine, health and disease.
- Industry Documents Library-Tobacco, Chemical, Food, and DrugThe UCSF Industry Documents Library (IDL) is a portal to aid investigation about cross-industry corporate practices that are detrimental to public health. IDL currently brings together materials created by the tobacco, drug, food, and chemical industries. These collections are an important tool for researchers, lawyers, journalists, advocates and the general public as they expose industry tactics around marketing campaigns, regulatory strategies, and public health policy formulation.
- Minority Health and Health Equity ArchiveIncludes digital resource materials in the fields of minority health and health disparities research and policy, including links to historical documents
- Office of Minority Health Resource Center online library catalogThe Office of Minority Health Resource Center online library catalog provides access to the nation’s largest repository of information dedicated to the health of minority populations within the United States and its territories. The collection includes over 70,000 documents, books, journal articles, reports, and media related to the health status of racial and ethnic minority populations. In addition, users can access consumer health materials in more than 40 languages. The database identifies print and digital content leading to article, document, journal, and organizational records.
- Tuskegee Syphilis Study- National Library of MedicineLink to digitized files kept by the National Library of Medicine on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.
- Tuskegee Syphilis Study Administrative RecordsIncludes photographs and records from the larger archival collection at the National Archives in Atlanta.