The Oral History Collection comprises transcripts of interviews conducted from 2006 to 2015 by Ellen S. More, Ph.D., founding director of Lamar Soutter Library’s Office of Medical History and Archives (OMHA) at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS). The interviews were conducted as part of Dr. More’s research into the history of UMMS, which is chronicled in her book, Beating the Odds: The University of Massachusetts Medical School, A History, 1962–2012 (2017). Interviewees include former and current members of the administration, faculty, staff, students, politicians, and community members.

The records in this collection from the University of Massachusetts Medical School consist of documents, correspondence, publications, and other materials created by the Office of Ethics between 1977 and 2000.

The Memorial Hospital Collection comprises annual reports and other material by or about The Memorial Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts.

The Graduate School of Nursing Papers documents the establishment of the Graduate School of Nursing at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and chronicles its early history and development.

The Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research (formerly Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology) was established in 1944 in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts by Dr. Gregory Pincus and Dr. Hudson Hoagland. This collection documents the Worcester Foundation history and development until its 1997 merger with the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts. Also included in this collection are materials related to the Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research faculty members.

The A. Robert Schell Papers chronicle A. Robert Schell’s time as a student in the first class of the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Samuel Bayard Woodward, M.D., (1787-1850), physician, educator, and publicist, was the first superintendent (1832-1846) of the State Lunatic Hospital (later the Worcester Recovery Center and Hospital) and the co-founder and first president (1844-1848) of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane (later the American Psychiatric Association). This collection contains digitized versions of essays, addresses, obituaries, letters, and verses created by Woodward from 1806 to 1848 and cover various medical, social, financial, educational, and personal topics.

The Union Medical Association was officially established at Blackstone Village, Mendon, Massachusetts, on May 12, 1834 by local doctors Hiram Allen, Abel Wilder, Metcalf Marsh, Ariel Ballou and Moses D. Southwick. The goal of the Union Medical Association was to maintain and advance the medical knowledge of its members. This collection includes reports and transcripts of lectures on interesting medical cases, new remedies, medical ethics, and statistics created from 1834 to 1858 by the Association’s members. Also included in this collection are autograph letters of different French, English, and American physicians dated 1758 - 1836. Currently, the papers of the Union Medical Association are the part of the Worcester District Medical Society collection housed at the Worcester Historical Museum.

The Robert E. Tranquada Papers chronicle Tranquada’s role as Chancellor and Dean of the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

When an all-male class of 16 students entered the new University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1970, they might well have wondered whether they were making a huge mistake. Undoubtedly they took an enormous risk. The entire school—faculty, students, staff, laboratories, offices and classrooms—was housed in a small converted warehouse. The faculty probably had their doubts as well. Not so Dr. Lamar Soutter, the school’s founding dean and guiding spirit. No matter how many times the state legislature threatened to withhold the school’s funding, or how many governors threatened to shut it down altogether, Soutter knew he could outlast them all. The University of Massachusetts Medical School, chartered in 1962 and opened in 1970, was one of a cohort of medical schools founded in response to fears of a physician shortage. In Massachusetts, this translated into a call for more opportunities for the state’s students to attend an affordable school where, it was hoped, they would deliver primary care to the people of their home state. Yet, Dean Soutter and the original faculty, most of whom were basic scientists recruited from Boston medical schools, were equally devoted to basic research and tertiary care medicine. This book tells the story of the school’s struggle, and eventual success in reconciling the demands of primary care education with world-class research. A revised version of this online history titled Beating the Odds: The University of Massachusetts Medical School, a History, 1962-2012 (TidePool Press, 2017), is available in hard cover from the publisher, from Amazon, or at the UMMS book store. Author biography Ellen S. More, Ph.D., a historian of medicine, is Professor Emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Specializing in the history of the American medical profession, the history of women physicians, and the history of medical education, she was the founding head of the Office of Medical History and Archives, Lamar Soutter Library, at UMass Medical School. She is the author or editor of four books, including Restoring the Balance: Women Physicians and the Profession of Medicine, 1850-1995 (Harvard), winner of the Rossiter Prize from the History of Science Society, Women Physicians and the Cultures of Medicine (Johns Hopkins), co-edited with Elizabeth Fee and Manon Parry, winner of the Best Publication award from the Archivists and Librarians of the History of the Health Sciences, The Empathic Practitioner: Empathy, Gender, and Medicine (Rutgers), co-edited with Maureen Milligan, and Beating the Odds: The University of Massachusetts Medical School, a History, 1962-2012 (TidePool Press, 2017), a revised, corrected, and updated version of The University of Massachusetts Medical School: Integrating Primary Care and Biomedical Research. More was also the Visiting Curator for the National Library of Medicine’s exhibition “Changing the Face of Medicine,” available online at https://cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/.