Collecting Health Histories
For History Day 2022, the John Rylands Research Institute and Library is delighted to offer a preview of our upcoming event for Being Human, the UK’s national festival of the humanities. The Exhibitions and Public Engagement with Research team at the Rylands spotlights how libraries and scholars can partner to engage audiences in research and collections.
A blog by Ceri James — Exhibitions and Public Engagement Assistant at John Rylands Research Institute and Library
Being Human
On Saturday, 19 November 2022 the Rylands presents Collecting Health Histories, a day of free activities at the Library bringing together the world-leading special collections of The University of Manchester Library and innovative research in the field of medical humanities accomplished across the University. This year Being Human would like us to think about ‘breakthroughs’: medical breakthroughs can significantly change our way of life, but who exactly is impacted by them, and why? These are the questions that Collecting Health Histories will be asking.
Collecting Health Histories Programme
10.30am — 11.30am: Health Histories Collections Encounter (Drop in)
Drop into the Historic Reading Room where specialist staff, curators and researchers from The University of Manchester Library will be presenting objects from the special collections that tell unique stories about healthcare from the past and present. Explore materials that help us understand historic epidemiology, find out what it was like to be a midwifery student in 19th-century Manchester, and view creative pieces made by Greater Manchester’s communities in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
12pm — 12.30pm: NHS Voices of Covid-19: A Moment in Time (Drop in)
NHS Voices of Covid-19 is a project that represents the place of the NHS in daily life and work. Its aim is to create a national collection of first-hand experiences of the coronavirus pandemic. Join us in the Christie Room and see personal stories come to life in this short film, encouraging us all to reflect on the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on our lives.
1pm — 2pm: Making History Together: Oral History Workshop (Free to Book on Eventbrite)
Meet the oral history experts behind the NHS Voices of Covid-19, who will be on hand to offer guidance on incorporating oral records into your own family history. Oral histories can open a rich world of voices, accents, aphorisms and recollections that may not be captured in the written word. They can be used to unlock stories about everyday life and work, and even offer insights into past local and national events, enriching traditional written archives and connecting people across generations.
Featured Research
The Exhibitions and Public Engagement with Research team at the Rylands is uniquely positioned to work in partnership with subject specialists and researchers to create innovative public engagement opportunities, and to promote the use and enjoyment of the special collections by diverse audiences. In designing Collecting Health Histories, the team partnered with research projects that brought to light everyday experiences and the impacts breakthroughs can have on ordinary people.
NHS Voices of Covid-19 — Centre for the History of Science Technology and Medicine.
Intersecting the disciplines of health, history and policy, NHS Voices of Covid-19 is a pioneering initiative to record people’s different experiences during the coronavirus pandemic. Funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and National Heritage Lottery Fund has propelled the project, enabling the recording of 2000 interviews. At the foreground is history’s public value, and the voices collected form a unique archive that will inform policy and influence social change.
All interviews will be archived at the British Library in the oral history department, creating a permanent public resource on the history of the NHS and Covid-19.
In 2021 NHS Voices of Covid-19 won the ‘Outstanding Benefit to Society through Research — Emerging Impact’ award at The University of Manchester’s annual Making a Difference Awards for Social Responsibility.
Dr Rebecca Whiteley — John Rylands Research Institute and Library Shreeve Fellow, History of Medicine
Dr Rebecca Whiteley has been using the Medical Collections of The University of Manchester Library and the Museum of Medicine and Health to research the visual culture of medicine and midwifery, charting the professionalisation of obstetrics from the 1500s to 1900. Obstetrics, originally dominated by male practitioners, proposed a medicalised view of pregnancy and birth rooted in anatomical and technical theories.
Most recently, Rebecca has investigated a very rare collection of prints and drawings used to teach midwifery in the 19th century; they are part of the Radford Collection, a sub-category of the Medical Manuscript Collection. Once in the library of Thomas Radford (1793–1881), one of Manchester’s most distinguished obstetricians, these incredible images and documents have been part of a major cataloguing project.
A close analysis of the Radford Collection has given Rebecca insights into the material and affective properties of midwifery teaching aids, which can help us to think about the experience of studying midwifery. She has published her findings as a chapter in Making Sense of Medicine.
Earlier this year Rebecca, alongside colleagues from the Rylands, presented objects from the Radford collection in a lunchtime seminar: ‘19th Century Obstetrical and Gynaecological Images’.
Further Resources
Manchester has played a crucial role in breakthroughs in medicine and healthcare throughout its history: the city is home to the first National Health Service hospital, Park Hospital in Trafford, now Trafford General Hospital.
Outstanding institutional collections accumulated at The University of Manchester, the Manchester Medical Society, Manchester Royal Infirmary and other teaching hospitals form an especially valuable resource for the research in the health humanities. Some of these collections have been digitised and are freely available to access.
The Museum of Medicine and Health has one of the most extensive collections of medical artefacts in England, the Beswick Collection. With its 3000 objects tracing the past 300 years of medical history in the Northwest, this collection is of great regional significance.
Read an introductory guide to The Medical Archive Collection at The University of Manchester Library. From there you can explore the archival holdings and metadata in depth on the Electronic Gateway to Archives at the Rylands (ELGAR).
Follow our helpful Medium guides on accessing the special collections.
Uncover fascinating stories that have been unearthed by research into the Medical Collections at The University of Manchester on the Rylands blog.
- Dr Clifford Hall: A Ship’s Surgeon
- Subvisible Bodies: Medical Microscopy in the Rylands Gallery
- Drawing Dissection: Medical Illustrations by Joseph Jordan’s Apprentice Digitised
- Obstetric Tables: A Collaborative Approach to an Unusual Georgian Midwifery Guidebook
- Thomas Radford Medical Illustration Collection
- Thomas Radford and Obstetrical Teaching
- The Museum of Medicine and Health on Manchester Digital Collections
- Lost and Found: The Rediscovery of a Missing Avicenna Manuscript
- Anonymous Anatomies: A Critical History of Visual Anonymity in Britain and America 1870–1955
Images reproduced with the permission of The John Rylands University Librarian and Director of the University of Manchester Library. All images used on this page are licenced via CC-BY-NC-SA, for further information about each image, please follow the link in the description.
