Photographing Pediatrics presents a selection of images from a collection of over 400 clinical photographs dating from circa 1900 to 1940.* The photographs were taken for teaching and research purposes for medical staff at Northwestern University’s South Side Dispensary and Montgomery Ward Outpatient Clinics.

This exhibit is intended for a medical audience. It may be challenging for some viewers. These photographs were taken to document clinical cases, not as individualized portraits.

Some of the infectious diseases and hereditary conditions exhibited are rarely encountered by modern-day physicians, with others reappearing with increasing frequency.  For the exhibit, photographs were cropped and anonymized to protect the identity of former patients. The majority of photographs contain only brief handwritten clinical notes or annotations such as the diagnosis, date and name of the patient and/or physician. The original diagnoses have been reproduced in italics on exhibit labels – including medical terminology no longer used due to their pejorative connotations.

This exhibit also provides an overview of the history of the University’s dispensaries and outpatient clinics, which provided care to many thousands of Chicagoans for more than a century.   

Photographing Pediatrics is a Northwestern Medicine collaboration between: Susan Sacharski, BA, Archivist, Northwestern Memorial Hospital; Ron Sims, MA, Special Collections Librarian, Galter Health Sciences Library, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine; Paula Summerly, PhD, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Medical Humanities and Bioethics Program, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

The organizers would like to acknowledge and thank the following individuals and institutions for their generous assistance in making Photographing Pediatrics possible from Northwestern University: James Shedlock, AMLS, AHIP, FMLA, Director, Galter Health Sciences Library; John T. Clarke, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Emeritus; Stanford T. Shulman, MD, The Virginia H. Rogers Professor of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Head, Division of Infectious Diseases; from the Medical Humanities & Bioethics Program, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine: Joel Frader, MD, MA, The A. Todd Davis Professor of General Academic Pediatrics and Professor of Medical Humanities & Bioethics; Tod Chambers, PhD, Program Director; Kathryn Montgomery, PhD, The Julia and David Uihlein Professor; Catherine Belling, PhD; and Bryan M.T. Morrison; Sandeep Jain, MD, Division of Immunotherapy and Autoimmune Diseases; Helen Facto, RBP, MA, former Biological Photographer, Wesley Memorial Hospital; Kristina Hedley, Director of Special Affairs, Northwestern Memorial Hospital; and Rusty Heckaman, MLIS, American Academy of Pediatrics.

The exhibit will run through September 2011 in Dollie's Corner, 2nd floor of the Galter Health Sciences Library (303 E. Chicago Ave, Chicago, IL 60611).

*The photographic collection is held in the Galter Health Sciences Library Special Collections, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

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