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Welcome
to the Samuel Gridley Howe Library's Website:
The Howe Library is home to historical collections of numerous scholars and leaders in the fields of disabilities. These collections include Rosemary and Gunnar Dybwad, Irving Kenneth Zola, Elizabeth Monroe Boggs, Edward J. Lynch, Jr., Florence S. Finkel, Walter E. Fernald, and David Pfeiffer. In the Special Collections section of this website information on these individuals and others can be found. The Historical Collection of the Samuel G. Howe Library consists of several parts. There are two main components: the Historical Book Collection and our Historical Files. The book collection consists of almost 4,000 books, articles and pamphlets dating from the 1840s to 1959 which were collected from Superintendents’ libraries and other libraries that once were in existence at the facility now called the Fernald Center. Under Dr. Fernald, who was Superintendent from 1887 until his death in 1924, the Library was called “the most complete library on Mental Defect to be found anywhere in the world”. (Annual Report, 1924) Mental retardation is the main subject here but there also are large areas on education (including special education), testing, social welfare and social work, psychiatry, eugenics and heredity and medicine – 116 subject categories. A listing of these subjects is available as well as bibliographies for each. The Historical Files are records of activity at the Fernald Center primarily during the first half of the twentieth century. The 662 files consist of reports, correspondence, Trustee minutes, organizational information, information about the Massachusetts Department of Mental Hygiene/Department of Mental Health/ Department of Mental Retardation, etc. – the paper work of a very complicated facility that enrolled over two thousand clients in 1939. Each of these files has been catalogued and placed on the Library’s data base. Another part of the Historical Collection dates from the very early days of the school. The present school had its genesis in 1848 with an appropriation of $2500 from the Massachusetts Legislature, making it the first publicly supported school for people in the Western Hemisphere. Its founder was Samuel Gridley Howe, who was followed by Edward Jarvis and Walter E. Fernald – these three led the school from 1848 until 1924 and made it into a center that was visited by people from all forty eight states and several other countries. We have annual reports, quarterly reports from Superintendents and Trustees, research materials, correspondence, medical information, materials from the School Department and other materials dating from the beginning of the School into the 1970s. Bibliographies are available for this material. Other sections of our collection include institutional reports from other states and Great Britain and Canada. Sixteen different states are represented with reports dating from the late 1800s up to 1956. Many of the reports have photographs showing the schools and activities at the schools. New York, Pennsylvania and Indiana are particularly well represented. Reports from Britain include a report from The Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-Minded, 1908, and annual reports (1869-1919) from the Royal Albert Asylum for Idiots and Imbeciles of the Northern Countries, which was located in Lancaster, England. Another place to look for the history of mental retardation is in our Journal Collection. We have an almost complete run of the journal that is now called the American Journal on Mental Retardation. This started in 1876 as the Proceedings of the Association of Medical Officers of American Institutions of Idiotic and Feebleminded. Other historic journals/publications are the Training School Bulletin, the French publication Recherches Cliniques et Therapeutiques sur l’Epilepsie, l’Hysterie et l’Idiotie and social work publications starting with the Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Conference of Charities and Correction in 1880. These historical files, journals and books are available for your use in the Samuel G. Howe Library. Some of the files may need permission from the Department of Mental Retardation to peruse because of client names. All are a rich lode for anyone interested in the history of mental retardation. The Library and Media Center is located at the Fernald Center, 200
Trapelo Road in Waltham, Massachusetts. It is accessible and
open to all (see updated hours at the bottom of the web page). Visiting
times are by appointment. Contact Howard
Baker or Hans Togel,
DMR Friends of the Howe Library: Friends of the Howe Library supported the Library since its founding and are instrumental in its growth and successes to date. Friends is a growing community, and new members are always welcome. To get involved and support the Howe Library please contact us by downloading and completing this form and mailing it to the library.
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The Howe Library was re-established in the early 1990's. Today Howe
contains one of the World's largest collections of resources on disabilities and Mental
Retardation. The Howe Library is a reference library specifically for students,
researchers, and people with disabilities and their families, but everyone is welcome to
utilize the library's resources. The Library also includes a Media
Center. At the Media Center one can find archival and current collections of slides,
videotapes and films on a vast array of topics.