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Putnam Children's Center Collection (1942-1991)
Historical Note: Dr.
Marian Cabot Putnam founded and
became a co-director (along with Beata Rank) of the James Jackson
Putnam
Children’s Center in 1943, naming it in honor of her father,
Dr James Jackson
Putnam. She
established the Putnam
Center
in order to provide treatment of pre-school and very young children, as
well as
to conduct a long-term study of healthy children, which became the Well
Baby
Clinic directed by T. Berry Brazelton. A daycare program for the local
community was also part of the Center’s focus. The
Center was opened under the auspices of the Judge Baker
Guidance Center
but in July 1946 became an independent unit, incorporated as the James
Jackson
Putnam Children’s Center. Women
played an important role at the Center,
employed as social workers, psychologists and child therapists. The
Center came
to specialize in long-term treatment of autistic children. When Dr.
Putnam
retired in 1962, over 200 atypical children had been treated. The
decline of the Center began in the 1960s
with the progressive loss of federal and private funding for
psychiatric
research and treatment. All psychiatric facilities were affected,
especially
the university teaching hospitals, but the Center may have been more
affected
than most due to its small size and specialized focus. The Center,
located in Roxbury, Massachusetts, was closed in 1979 due
to bankruptcy.
Summary: the
collection includes correspondence, minutes, annual and other
administrative reports, forms, clippings, publications, records and
related material,
of James
Jackson Putnam Children’s Center. The archive was donated to
BPSI
in 2004 by Dr. Janet L. Brown, psychologist and eventually an acting
Chief
Psychologist at the James Jackson Putnam Children's Center,
c1965-c1978. The collection was processed by the
BPSI
Archivist Sarah Wharton Smith during 2004-2005. Records are
arranged by series and sub-series and chronologically. Please note:
this collection does not include any clinical records. All patient
records and logitudinal studies have been donated to the Center for the History of Medicine at
the Countway Library and Archives.
Also in
possession
of the BPSI Archives: Putnam Children's Center Photographs
collection, and the transcripts of interviews and audio recordings with
Marian C.
Putnam (1971), Elizabeth
Cobb (1974-1978), Harriet
Robey (1984), and
Janet Brown (2004, 2011), Sanford Gifford (2010), and William Eger
(2010) concerning Putnam Children's Center history and
activities (see Oral History
Transcripts and Oral History Interviews collections).
Finding
Aid for
this collection is available
here (viewing it requires Adobe Acrobat Reader).
Related BPSI Collections
Audiovisual
Materials (includes Harriet Robey's, Janet Brown's, Sanford
Gifford, and William Eger's interviews)
Child Analysis
Materials, 1926-1989
Oral History
Transcripts, 1961-2004
Putnam Children's
Center Photographs, 1958-1966
Putnam, Marian C.
(1893-1971)
Vertical File
(includes biography of Beata Rank)
Related Archives
Countway Faculty and Staff Portrait
Collection: James Jackson Putnam
Related Cites
Infantile Psychosis. Overview of studies at
the James Jackson Putnam Children's Center by Reiser, D.E. (PubMed
citation)
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