Apart from publicly distributed materials, Columbia University records are closed to researchers for 25 years from date of creation. Please see container list for folders closed to researchers in Series I.
Digital access copies for born-digital photographs are available on demand, onsite, in Archives & Special Collections. Analog audio materials are restricted pending digital transfer.
The personal and professional records from physiologist and research scientist Fredi Kronenberg, documenting her life and work in menopause research and as the director of the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Center (RHRC) for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University. Includes correspondence, photographs, audio recordings of talks and lectures, grants proposals, scientific study data and other documentation, RHRC promotional material, administrative records, course curricula, conference materials, video recordings of events and classes in collaboration with scholars and institutions in alternative medicine. Includes born-digital, digitized, and analog recordings.
History and Biography
Fredi Kronenberg was born March 7, 1950 in the Bronx. In high school she studied at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California. Furthering her interest in the biological sciences, she received a BS degree from Cornell University (1972) and PhD in physiology from Stanford University (1979) with dissertation titled, “Colonial thermoregulation in honey bees.”
Her post-doctoral research began in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine in Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. She was a trainee in the Neurobehavioral Sciences Research Training Program (1979-1981) and postdoctoral fellow (1981-1982). Her research involved menopause physiology and eventually branched into herbal and botanical remedies for treating menopausal hot flashes, particularly focused on the black cohosh plant Actaea racemosa/Cimicifuga racemosa, native to North America.
In 1989, Kronenberg helped establish the North American Menopause Society (NAMS). Prior to that, she ran menopausal support groups in New York City under the auspices of Women’s Association for Research in Menopause (WARM). She continued her work with menopausal support groups into the 1990s.
Within the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Kronenberg established the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Center (RHRC) for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in 1993. Under the auspices of the Center, she led several studies involving complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), Chinese traditional medicine, urban ethnobotanical practices, healthy diet choices, herbal supplement market, and the use of dietary phytoestrogens. Center faculty included Columbia University and visiting professors, Michael J. Balick, Mark Blumenthal, Adriane Fugh-Berman, Tieraona Low Dog, Rob McCaleb, Woodson C. Merrel, Marcey Shapiro, and Andrew Weil.
The Center offered CME (Continuing Medical Education) courses “Botanical Medicine in Modern Clinical Practice” and “Integrative Pain Medicine” in addition to a collaborative course with the University of Arizona College of Medicine, “Nutrition and Health,” led by Dr. Andrew Weil. These courses were new to the curriculum in the faculty of medicine and served as an introduction to evidence-based alternative medicine in the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S).
In 1999, the VP&S received a 5-year grant from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM)--part of the NIH--to develop a Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) Research in Aging, extending the work of the NIH--funded Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Research in Women’s Health. This added “center” was housed in the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
Throughout her career, Kronenberg produced several academic papers and a great number of talks and visiting lectures. She also served as senior editor for the Journal of Alternative & Complementary Medicine and was on the editorial boards of Menopause: Journal of the North American Menopause Society and Menopause Management.
Kronenberg was director of the Rosenthal Center from its inception until closing due to lack of funding on June 30, 2007. She died of lung cancer April 20, 2017.
The American Botanical Council named the Fredi Kronenberg Award for Excellence in Research and Education in Botanical for Women’s Health in her honor. It was first awarded in 2018.
Organization
Arranged into 5 series: I. Rosenthal Center; II. Studies; III. Conferences; IV. Personal; V. Photographs. These series are further arranged into subseries.
The bulk of the papers are described and arranged at folder-level. Born-digital records were arranged intellectually with similar records at disk-level, not by file-level. The content of some disks may overlap series and subseries.
Correspondence; course syllabi, assessments and readings; fliers, advertisements and programs for events and clinical studies; grant applications; annual reports; proposals; budgets and donor information; invitations; bibliographies and publications; photographic prints, negatives, slides, and albums; scrapbooks; clippings; press releases, notes, questionnaires, interviews, manuals, presentations, video and audio recordings, and born-digital files document the operations of the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Center under the direction of Fredi Kronenberg. Additional correspondence, writings and publications; photographic prints, negatives, slides, and albums; scrapbooks; clippings; notes, interviews, lectures, conference proceedings; curricula vitae; presentations, video and audio recordings; and born-digital files document Fredi Kronenberg’s career, particularly involving her research in menopausal hot flashes and in the field of complementary and alternative medicine.
The bulk of digital content consists of digitized audio records of talks by Fredi Kronenberg regarding menopause and video recordings from the RHRC 10th year anniversary event.
Subject Headings and Related Records
Administrative Information
Gift of Kim Kronenberg in 2017 (accession #2017.027) and Christine Wade in 2018 (accession #2018.029).
Rehoused into new folders and boxes. Materials were removed from ring binders and the bulk of items removed from plastic/scrapbook sleeves but kept in original order. Contents within folders not necessarily found in chronological order. Original folder titles were retained unless revised for clarity and ease of searching. Herbal supplement pills were discarded.
Photographic negatives and Kodak PictureCDs (when present) have been retained with prints in their respective original envelopes.
as indicated by file name. Preservation copies (iso format) created and held internally. Preservation imaging not applied to other media until requested on-demand. Born-digital records 9
were arranged intellectually with similar records at disk-level, not necessarily digital file-level. The content of some disks may overlap series and subseries.
Nineteen analog items (5 cassette tapes, 8 miniDV cassette tapes, 5 VHS tapes, and 1 DVCAM) were digitized by vendor George Blood, Inc in October 2020, creating preservation copies (mov format) and access copies (mp4).
Collection processed and finding aid written by Jennifer Ulrich, 2020-2021.