Introduction: The Archives and Special Collections of The New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute

Archives

The Archives of the Society and Institute consist of eight groups of papers:

1. The papers of the Society from 1911 to 1946
2. The papers of the Institute from 1931 to 1946
3. Society papers, 1946-1965
4. Institute papers, 1946-1965
5. Papers of the Joint Activities of the Society and Institute
6. Papers of the A.A. Brill Library, 1932-1982
7. Papers of the Treatment Center
8. papers of the Kris Study Group.

The Special Collections

The Special Collections include the Rare Book Collection, papers of prominent analysts, oral history interviews, photographs, manuscripts and memorabilia documenting the history of psychoanalysis. The various collections are described below.

Oral History Interviews

This collection includes interviews with: Rudolph Loewenstein, Dora and Heinz Hartmann, Edith Jacobson, Jeanne Lampl-de Groot, Marianne Kris, Charles Brenner, Jacob Arlow, Leo Stone, Isidor Silbermann, Viola Bernard, Else Pappenheim, Charles Fisher, George Gero and Mark Kanzer. These interviews constitute an invaluable resource for scholars interested in psychoanalysis.

Photographs

This collection includes signed photographs of Sigmund Freud and Anna Freud, Karl Abraham, Sandor Rado, David Levy, Paul Federn, and Wilhem Reich. Other photographs of equal interest, to list but a few, are those of Eugen Bleuler, A.A. Brill, August Aichhorn, Heinz Hartmann, Edith Jacobson, Berta Bornstein, Bert Lewin, Peter Blos, Robert Bak, Sandor Ferenczi, Ernest Jones, Lawrence Kubie, Rudolph Loewenstein, Adolf Meyer, Herman Nunberg, Ludwig Jekels, and James Strachey. The collection also includes photographs documenting the earliest psychoanalytic congresses as well as pictures depicting the history of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. But there are also significant gaps in this collection and efforts to acquire photographs of historic interest are ongoing.

Individual Papers and Manuscripts

Among the papers in the Special Collections are those of Berta Bornstein, Mary O'Neil Hawkins, Fritz Wittels, Max Stern and Silvano Arieti. Manuscripts include several written by Theodore Reik, Bert Lewin's The Psychoanalysis of Elation, with his handwritten corrections, and a handwritten draft of 30 folio pages by C.G. Jung of Das Werden der Personlichkeit, Wien, 1932. Among Fritz Wittels papers was his unpublished autobiography, Wrestling with the Man: The Story of a Freudian. It has been edited for publication by Professor Edward Timms for Yale University Press, and will be published in November of 1995. In 1993 the papers of George Gero, M.D. and Edward Kronold, M.D. were donated to the Special Collections. Dr. Gero's papers were an especially important acquisition because they include an extensive correspondence with Otto Fenichel.

Letters

Original letters include a number written by Freud. In 1982 the Library acquired a remarkable collection of letters written in 1927-28 to support the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Medicine to Freud. They were signed by such notables as Thomas Mann, Leonard Wolf, Hermann Hesse, Marie Bonaparte and Bertrand Russell. Another acquisiton is some of Rudolph Loewenstein's letters to and from Freud, Jacques Lacan, Hanns Sachs and Marie Bonaparte. Finally, many letters of interest and importance may be found throughout the Special Collections.

The Anna Freud Collection

Includes Anna Freud's correspondence with the Institute, lectures, and the Hampstead Nursery Collection. The latter are a group of reports and manuscripts written from 1941 through 1957 documenting the work of the Hampstead Nursery.

Rare and Historical Books

The goal of the Rare Book Collection (RBC) is to gather together the books, journals and pamphlets which document the development of psychoanalysis. There are approximately 2,000 volumes in the RBC. They include many first editions of Freud's writings (including a nearly complete collection of his pre-psychoanalytic writings); complete runs of early psychoanalytic journals (e.g. Jahrbuch fur Psychoanalytische und Psychopathologische Forschung, Imago, Zeitschrift fur Psychoanalytische Padagogik); and works by, among others, Breuer, Charcot, Kraepelin, Janet, Bleuler, Abraham, Ferenczi, Rank, Jones, Wittels, Bernfeld, Hug-Hellmuth. The collection also includes signed volumes by Freud, Bert Lewin, Edith Jacobson, Marie Bonaparte, Otto Rank, and Fritz Wittels. It also contains psychoanalytic and psychiatric books in over 20 languages, among them German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, Hungarian, Swedish, Dutch, French, Polish and Hebrew. The collection also possesses some extremely rare works of Freud published in Russia between 1912 and 1924. As far as can be determined, we are the only library in the United States that possesses these books.