McGill Library
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Harvey Cushing Fonds
Fonds
2.08 m of textual records and other records.
Harvey Cushing was born on April 8, 1869 in Cleveland, Ohio. He was the youngest child of Henry Kirke Cushing, physician, and Betsey Maria Williams. In 1902, he married Katharine Stone Crowell with whom he had five children : William Harvey, Mary Benedict, Betsey, Henry Kirke and Barbara. His primary and secondary education was in Cleveland. He received his A.B. at Yale University in 1891, and his M.A., M.D., at Harvard University in 1895. He died on October 7, 1939 in New Haven, Connecticut. Harvey Cushing began his career at the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1895-96. He moved to Baltimore to work at the Johns Hopkins Hospital where he stayed for 15 years, mostly at the Faculty of Surgery. In 1912, he returned to Harvard as Professor of Surgery and also worked at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (1913-1932). In 1933, he became Professor of Neurology at Yale, a position he held until 1937. Considered a pioneer of Neurosurgery, he made several fundamental discoveries about the pituitary gland. Bibliophile and an earnest collector of books, he published many essays and other literary works, among them the 1926 Pulitzer prize-winning biography of William Osler.
The fonds was donated to the Osler Library by Harvey Cushing in 1932. Old accession numbers 234, 235, 348, 417 and 455.
The fonds contains original and typescript letters, manuscript notes, newspaper clippings, journal extracts, reminiscences and more, assembled by Harvey Cushing between 1920 and 1924 during the course of his research for the biography of William Osler. For the biography, Cushing collected and retyped over 7500 pieces of Osler's correspondence, among which are some original letters.
The fonds is separated into three series: Manuscripts, Working Notes and Osler's Correspondence. It also contains photographs, annual reports, publications, clippings, one watercolor painting, one postcard. Osler's correspondence is further arranged in three subseries based chronologically.
The fonds has been divided into three series, with the final series consisting of William Osler's correpsondence further arranged into three subseries which roughly represent: his childhood and early career in Canada (Cushing 1); his years in Philadelphia and Baltimore (Cushing 2); and the Oxford period (Cushing 3). The fonds was originally filed, codified, and organized chronologically by Cushing himself. The top of each folder is marked with the folder number and either a subject heading or a date. CUS417/69.1 is the classification mark of the item, where CUS417 refers to the Fonds number, 69 refers to the folder number, and 1 is the number that relates specifically to the document in question. Please note that sometimes more that one item appears on a page; each separate item is given its own identification number. In some instances, items appear on the verso of the record that precedes it. Cushing also had a colouring coding system for his papers, which is preserved here as an alternative identifier. Blue refers to biographical information, pink to miscellaneous information, yellow to information on books, and white to correspondence.
The documents are mainly in English, but some are in German and there are notes in Latin.
Searchable index of materials available at William Osler Letter Index.
Descriptions of this archival material are currently being added to the Archival Collections Catalogue on an ongoing basis.