Unrestricted.
Records documenting Richard W. Clapp’s role as a student activist at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (P&S) in the late 1960s-early 1970s.
History and Biography
Richard W. Clapp was born in 1945 in Lewiston, Maine, the son of a general surgeon. He received his A.B. from Dartmouth in 1967 and that Fall entered the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (P&S) as a member of the Class of 1971. He was also an International Fellow at the Columbia University School of International Affairs from 1967 to 1970. He withdrew from P&S in 1970 without receiving a degree. He later received degrees in public health from Harvard (MPH) and in epidemiology from Boston University (D.Sc.). Clapp served on the faculty of Boston University’s School of Public Health for many years. As of the writing of this finding aid (2013), he remains active in a number of health activist groups, including Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Organization
Organized in two series: I. Subject files; II. Publications.
Records documenting Clapp’s role as a student activist at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (P&S) in the late 1960s-early 1970s. Included are papers and essays on health care topics written by Clapp as a student; curriculum materials; flyers and newsletters; and records relating to his involvement in the Harlem School Health Project, an effort to provide free medical screening and follow-up medical care to students at a public school in Harlem. Other materials are not directly related to his years in medical school but provide a good picture of leftist activity and thinking on U.S. health care issues in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These include his FBI file and publications from several leftist groups including a long run of the Health/PAC Bulletin (1968-77, with gaps). There is also a biographical sketch of his fellow P&S activist classmate, Alan Berkman (P&S 1971), based on an interview Clapp had with him in 2001.
Subject Headings and Related Records
Administrative Information
Gift of Richard W. Clapp, 2013 (acc. #2013.005)
Papers organized and finding aid written by Stephen E. Novak, 2013.