James Rowland Angell was the president of Yale from 1921 to 1937. His presidency was marked by a massive expansion in Yale’s institutional holdings, as well as witnessing the birth of the residential college system. Angell also intended to institutionalize eugenics, and helped recruit prominent eugenicists like psychologist Robert Yerkes and anthropologist Clark Wissler for the Yale Institute of Psychology, and later, the Institute of Human Relations.

Examples of what can be found in MS 2 include: discussions of intellectual fitness and education; Rockefeller Foundation-sponsored research into the medical sciences; founding documents for the Yale Institute of Psychology; and correspondence with the American Psychological Association.

RU 24 contains more administrative and professional correspondence from during Angell’s tenure as president. These documents include: a proposal for “sex-social education in the colleges” and an attempted recruitment to the American Social Hygiene Association; education tests meant to measure probable success in college; and suggestion for an American Journal of Science to be hosted by the Yale Sheffield Scientific School.

Robert Mearns Yerkes was a prominent psychologist, and was invited to Yale in 1924 by President James Angell. Prior to his employment at Yale, Yerkes primary work had been in developing Alpha and Beta Intelligence Tests for administration to United States troops. Yerkes’ testing program was the first instance of group intelligence tests and popularized intelligence testing in both the public and private sectors. Yerkes was a devoted eugenicists throughout his life, and believed that concepts of intelligence were linked to the value of human beings, wherein some were fit, civilized, and desirable, in contrast to those who were uncivilized, undesirable, and unfit.

Examples of what can be found within the MS 569 collection include: plans for the Institute of Psychology and the transition to the Institute of Human Relations; discussion of the results of the army intelligence tests, including criticisms; correspondence about evolution and the science of eugenics; Yerkes’ lecture notes.

Series 1 includes a broad range of publications of Arnold Gesell from 1937 to 1956. They include not only reprints of professional articles, but also popular articles from newspapers, magazines, and newsletters of organizations; popular pamphlets; radio broadcasts; unpublished talks, book reviews by Gesell; clippings of reviews of Gesell's books; and testimony for legislation. There are also some typescripts, possibly unpublished, and a small amount of correspondence and manuscript material related to publications.

Series 2 includes publications, typescripts, and published dissertations of Gesell's students and colleagues at the Clinic of Child Development and the Gesell Institute. This series is much more incomplete than Series 1. These files appear to have been maintained by Louise Bates Ames, Gesell's assistant at the Yale Clinic of Child Development from 1933 to 1948. She received a Ph.D. under Gesell in 1936 and was later one of the founders of the Gesell Institute of Child Development.

The Irving Fisher Papers consist of correspondence, diaries, writings, teaching files, and memorabilia documenting the professional career and personal life of Irving Fisher, a mathematician, political economist, prolific author, activist in numerous social and political causes, and inventor. The materials reflect Fisher's interests in economics, the League of Nations, monetary theory and policy, national politics, health reform, prohibition, nutrition, and other topics. Major correspondents include politicians, economists, members of the Yale community, family members, and personal friends. Included in the papers are photocopies and microfilmed copies of many of Fisher's publications. The papers form part of the Contemporary Medical Care and Health Policy Collection.

The papers, which date from 1861 to 1976, were donated to the Yale University Library by Irving Fisher and his son Irving Norton Fisher between 1939 and 1963, with smaller additions donated by others between 1941 and 1982.

Milton C. Winternitz was the Dean of the Yale Medical School from 1920 to 1935. An excellent analysis of his eugenic ideologies is elaborated upon in the original scholarship section.

This collection contains his correspondence, writings, lectures, printed matter, and memorabilia. The correspondence is made up largely of family correspondence, with a smaller amount of professional letters. Among his professional papers are lectures on pathology, offprints of his articles (1908-1946) and scrapbooks (1898-1954). Included also are letters of condolence to his family and biographical sketches on his death in 1959.

The Institute of Human Relations (IHR) was established in 1929 at Yale University as an interdisciplinary center for cooperative research on problems of human welfare. The Institute's efforts at interdisciplinary programs to study social and cultural issues were largely funded by outside agencies. A wide range of publications and studies resulted from the Institute's projects. The administrative structure of the Institute created organizational difficulties, and the IHR was absorbed by regular departments and schools in the 1950s.

The Medical Historical Library also houses two boxes about the IHR.

The archives also reveal the explicit and implicit connections between the IHR and its eugenic underpinnings, which are explored at length in student works.