The papers include correspondence, oral history interviews, reports, patient records, photographs, audio and video recordings, phonograph records, printed material, newspaper clippings, and artifacts. Almost every aspect of Bernard's life, both personal and professional, is documented in her papers. While the personal records are less extensive than the professional, Bernard tended to conflate these two spheres of her life, with many professional colleagues becoming long-time friends, and personal material can be found throughout the papers.

Because of the extent and complexity of the papers, each series and most subseries are described separately. You can download each series box and folder lists separately or as one large file.

Series I. Dictations and Oral Histories

Boxes 1-3

Oral history transcriptions and dictations made by Bernard. The dictations (.35 cubic feet) are Bernard's explanatory notes on many of the activities documented in her papers. In the 1980s-1990s she dictated these notes expressly for inclusion in the papers while they were being organized.

The oral history transcripts (.65 cubic feet) date from the 1970s-1990s. They are a rich and extensive source of research material. Also included are correspondence between Bernard and her interviewers and scattered notes by her on the interview process. The Kirkpatrick series of interviews (13 sessions, held between 1990 and 1996; indexed) are a comprehensive history of Bernard's personal and professional life and are essential reading. Many of these interviews are also available on audio or videotapes (see Record Series 17).

Series II. Biographical/Personal Papers and Correspondence

Boxes 4-23

Family correspondence; wills, property inventories and financial records; educational records, largely her medical school notebooks; and personal correspondence. The largest part of the series relates to Theos Casimir Bernard, Viola Bernard's husband from 1934 to1938.

Subseries are as follows:

2.1: Family History & Chronologies, 1919-1996

(2 boxes; .66 cubic feet)

Correspondence, wills, and financial records. Correspondents include Angelika Wertheim Frink, Bernard's half-sister, and Diana Wertheim Whittlesey Westa, her sister.

2.2: Miscellaneous Personal Papers, 1937-1995

(2 boxes; .66 cubic feet)

Early writings; property deeds; and inventories and appraisals of Bernard's homes.

2.3: Education & Professional Training, 1919-1948

(1 box; .33 cubic feet)

Medical school notebooks; notes from her post-graduate psychoanalytic training.

2.4: Theos Casimir Bernard, 1933-1999

(8.5 boxes; 2.66 cubic feet)

Correspondence, photographs, artifacts, books and other printed matter documenting his career as an explorer of Tibet and as a scholar of Tibetan Buddhism. Of particular importance is the original carbon typescript of the journal he kept in Lhasa covering May 11- Nov 15, 1937 and his many letters to Viola Bernard while in Tibet, 1936-1937. Numerous photographs document both the Bernards' trip to Asia in 1936 as well as the subsequent journey of Theos to Tibet. Artifacts include several Tibetan New Year's cards commissioned by Theos Bernard in Lhasa, and an Ayurvedic medical kit purchased by Viola Bernard in 1936 in India.

Also found in this series are records relating to the Theos C. Bernard archives at the Arizona Historical Society, including a family tree; publications by and magazine articles about T.C. Bernard; transcripts of interviews; and educational and family data.

2.5: Personal Correspondence, 1918-1998

(6.5 boxes; 2.15 cubic ft.)

The first .66 cubic feet is general correspondence arranged chronologically. The remainder is arranged alphabetically by individual correspondent. These are a mix of incoming and outgoing letters, though incoming predominates. Much of the correspondence bears on Bernard's professional life as well. Correspondents include Peter Gillingham, Grant Mouradoff, Agnes Inglis O'Neil, and Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, a Sufi teacher who was a distant relative of Pierre and Theos Bernard. At the end of the series are letters of condolence and tributes to Bernard at her death in 1998.

Series III Philanthropy & Contributions

Boxes 24-34

Correspondence, meeting minutes, financial records, and other materials documenting Bernard's philanthropic activities and donations. Included are records of her foundation, the Viola W. Bernard Foundation (established in 1967 as the Tappanz Foundation), which funded projects ranging from child welfare to the environment.

This series also documents her donations of archival material. The most important was the gift to the Freud Archives at the Library of Congress of family papers documenting the "Frink affair." In 1922, Bernard's older half-sister Angelika married her analyst, Horace Frink, an American analysand and prot�g� of Sigmund Freud. The marriage, which was actively encouraged by Freud, ended in divorce after Frink's own mental illness became evident, and the episode became a scandal in the history of psychoanalysis. This series contains photocopies of that donation, as well as additional documents not donated by Bernard to the Freud Archives.

Subseries are as follows:

3.1: Viola W. Bernard Foundation, Inc. (formerly Tappanz Foundation, Inc.), 1954-1998

(5 boxes; 1.66 cubic feet)

3.2: Personal Financial Contributions, 1940s-1998

(2.5 boxes; .8 cubic feet)

3.3: Archival Donations

(3.5 boxes; 1.15 cubic feet)

Series IV Professional Records 

Boxes 35-57

General professional records, particularly those of Bernard's private practice as a psychiatrist. Included are private practice records; daily logbooks; correspondence with colleagues; and honors and awards. The professional correspondence includes letters from Justine Wise Polier, Marion E. Kenworthy, and Margaret Morgan Lawrence - all close collaborators and friends of Bernard throughout her career. Letters from aspiring psychoanalysts who sought career advice from Bernard are also included in this series. Additional facets of Bernard's professional life can be found in other series.

Subseries are as follows:

4.1: Professional Correspondence, 1937-1998

(13 boxes; 4.35 cubic feet)

Incoming and outgoing. First 2.5 boxes arranged chronologically, followed by 5.5 boxes arranged alphabetically by correspondent. Last 5 boxes are letters to and from Justine Wise Polier, Marion E. Kenworthy, and Margaret Morgan Lawrence. Additional correspondence with these three women can be found throughout the papers.

4.2: Career Counseling, 1944-1995

(2 boxes; .7 cubic feet)

Annual files containing letters of reference and recommendations, and notes of conversations with people who sought career guidance from Bernard, and correspondence with them. Arranged chronologically. Some items are restricted.

4.3: Practice Records, 1940-1998

(3 boxes; 1 cubic foot)

Correspondence regarding professional appointments; licenses; resumes; and information on specific medical topics.

4.4: Logbooks, 1958-1996

(4 boxes; 1.35 cubic feet)

Notebooks of daily activities, begun by Bernard in 1958 as a result of being asked by the Federal Security Agency to document her daily activities in written interrogatories. As a defensive measure in case of a future investigation, she thereafter kept detailed notes on letters written, phone calls made, meetings attended and clinical work conducted each day, in a daily log. Arranged chronologically.

4.5: Awards & Honors, 1933-1996

(.5 box; .17 cubic feet)

These include certificates and correspondence relating to the awards. Only color photocopies exist of her medals, the originals being retained by her family. See also Record Series 17.

Series V Early Research, Academic & Clinical Activities

Boxes 57-78

Records of Bernard's early research interests which focused on family formation, broadly understood, and psychoanalysis. These topics continued to be of interest to Bernard throughout her career. Included is material on her work on female infertility, adoption, and unwed motherhood. There are also records of her participation in the "Twin Study," a long-term study of identical twins reared apart that was jointly sponsored by the Child Development Center, Louise Wise Services, and Columbia University. Also present are records of her training and teaching at the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.

Subseries are as follows:

5.1: Infertility, 1935-1989

(1.5 boxes; .6 cubic feet)

Correspondence, case records, research methodologies, scientific articles and newspaper clippings relating to Bernard's research in psychogenic female infertility during the 1940s. Her interest in the topic stemmed from her early work in psychosomatic medicine at Columbia University, when psychosomatic medicine was an emerging new area of psychiatry (see also Sub-Series 6.3). Her research in this period led to her larger Family Development Research Unit project, undertaken in the 1960s.

5.2: Adoption, 1938-1998

(13 boxes; 4.35 cubic feet)

Bernard's research file on adoption and its issues. It includes a huge number of publications, some quite ephemeral, that she collected over half a century of work in the field. Topics covered include adoptee adaptation, foster care, hard-to-place children, adoption by African-Americans, the question of sealed records, among others. Bernard's articles on the subject are also included. Adoption was a central interest in Bernard's career as a psychiatrist. Researchers interested in adoption should also see Sub-Series 7.4, Louise Wise Services.

5.3: Psychodynamics of Unwed Motherhood, 1944-1948; 1955

(1.5 boxes; .6 cubic feet)

Contains outline of the study; case files on patients; Bernard's early notes and papers on the study (1944); later papers (1948 and 1955); and notes on sources. Also included are correspondence regarding setting up the study; responses to Bernard's scientific papers; correspondence concerning her services to the Medical Advisory Committee of Inwood House, New York City (1955); and relevant literature. There are also records of Bernard's seminars on the subject at the Spence Chapin Adoption Agency, Church Mission of Help, and Community Service Society of New York, 1943-1944. Some folders are restricted due to the presence of personal information.

5.4: Child Development Center (CDC): Twin Study [Twins Reared Apart], 1953-1997

(3 boxes; 1 cubic foot). Most files CLOSED until October 25, 2065

Correspondence, mostly with Louise Wise Services, one of the three sponsoring institutions of the study; meeting minutes; progress reports; financial and fundraising records; scientific publications; and newspaper clippings. The primary records of the project were donated by the Child Development Center to Yale University, where they will be opened to researchers in 2065. The bulk of this series is likewise closed until that date.

Bernard was co-investigator with Peter Neubauer in this longitudinal prospective research project about identical twins placed as infants in separate adoptive homes and reared apart. Bernard wrote in 1963 that the study "provides a natural laboratory situation for studying certain questions with respect to the nature-nurture issue and of family dynamic interactions in relation to personality development." The study later aroused controversy, chiefly because the adoptive parents and adoptees were not informed about the twinship, in keeping with the practice of the day.

5.5: New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, 1935-1996

(1.5 boxes; .6 cubic feet)

Records relating to her training and membership in the Society; the courses she taught there; and minutes and other records of committees on which she served.

Bernard was a candidate and graduate (1942) of the Institute, the first center (1911) for psychoanalytic training in the United States. During the late 1930s-early 1940s she was close to fellow members Sandor Rado, David Levy, and George Daniels and later joined them in 1945 in founding the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, as an alternative to the NYPSI (see Sub-Series 6.1).

Series VI Columbia University

Boxes 79-146

Includes a wide variety of records relating to Bernard's more than half-century on the faculty of Columbia University. In particular, it documents her role as founder and long-time director of the School of Public Health's Division of Community and Social Psychiatry - a field in which Bernard was a pioneer - as well as her involvement as a founding member of the Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. Included are administrative and research records, teaching materials and printed matter. The largest subseries documents the Family Development Research Unit, a long-term project studying the psychological aspects of childbearing, in which Bernard had a leading role.

Bernard joined the medical school faculty in 1942 as an Assistant in Psychiatry. She became an Assistant Clinical Professor in 1955, Associate Clinical Professor in 1957 and a Clinical Professor in 1961. Upon her retirement in 1972 she was named an Emeritus Clinical Professor, a rank she held until her death. Throughout these years, she held complementary positions on the staff of Presbyterian Hospital's Psychiatric Service.

Subseries are as follows:

6.1: Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, 1942-1997

(4.5 boxes; 1.17 cubic feet)

Over fifty years of correspondence with the Center; candidates' applications for admission; case histories for presentations, bulletins and newsletters; and other administrative, financial and educational materials. Also included are records of the Viola W. Bernard Fellowship, endowed by Bernard, and material from the Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine.

In 1942, Sandor Rado and other colleagues, dissatisfied with what they saw as the New York Psychoanalytic Society's authoritarianism and rigidity, began meeting separately. The dissidents formed a new group, the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, and left the NYPSI in 1945 to establish, under Rado's leadership, the Psychoanalytic Clinic for Training and Research (later renamed the Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research) at Columbia University. Bernard was active in the group's successful campaign to gain approval as a member Institute of the American Psychoanalytic Association. The founders of the Clinic, in addition to Rado and David Levy, included Nolan D.C. Lewis (then chair of Columbia's department of psychiatry), Abram Kardiner, George Daniels and - among the more junior members of the faculty - Robert Bak, Nathan Ackerman, and Bernard. Although still a candidate (she was graduated in1942), Bernard was centrally involved in all phases of the planning, and had a major influence in developing the new training institute's curriculum. In 1947 Bernard established the country's first low-fee psychoanalytic clinic there.

Bernard later commented that, while Rado had split with the New York Psychoanalytic over the issue of intellectual freedom, he later became autocratic himself, and would not tolerate any doubt or disagreement with his own views. One example of this trait is the controversy over Rado's "excommunication" of Robert C. Bak, documented in these records.

The split with the NYPSI caused a bitter feud in New York psychoanalytic circles. Unlike her colleagues, however, Bernard did not become drawn into the hostilities: she remained a life-long member of both the New York Psychoanalytic Society and the new Center's society, the Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine.

6.2: Columbia University School of Social Work (formerly the New York School of Social Work), 1942-1978

(1.5 boxes; 1.17 cubic feet)

Reading lists; course assignments; other curriculum materials for courses given by Bernard at the School and at the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic; material on dissertation committees; general correspondence with the School; and printed matter.

Bernard's career-long collaboration with social workers, as crucial members of a social psychiatric team approach, began through her relationship with Marion E. Kenworthy. Kenworthy, a psychiatrist, was a pioneer in teaching psychiatric principles to social workers and was a significant force in developing the field of psychiatric social work. She was one of Bernard's most important mentors, and during World War II, when Kenworthy worked with the military, she invited Bernard to take over her courses at the New York School of Social Work. Bernard continued to teach at the School into the 1950s.

6.3: College of Physicians and Surgeons. Department of Psychiatry/New York State Psychiatric Institute, 1935-1988

(5 boxes; 1.7 cubic feet)

Administrative and research records and other materials relating to Bernard's work as a faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons (P&S). Also, records of Bernard's early research in psychosomatic medicine; the establishment of the Viola W. Bernard Endowment Fund for Research in Child Psychiatry; and the joint College-Hospital Combined Case Seminars.

There is also a small amount of records relating to the New York State Psychiatric Institute (PI) which, while operated by the state government of New York, was staffed and administered by the department of psychiatry at P&S. Bernard did part of her residency here (1939-1940); her clinical notes from that period are in Record Series 12.

The subseries is organized into the following categories:

General, 1943-1996

(.25 cubic feet)

Correspondence, committee minutes, and case notes.

Dept. of Psychiatry: Psychosomatic Medicine, 1939-1986

(1 box; .35 cubic feet)

Case studies, notes, and articles on asthma, as well as other relevant scientific literature on the topic. Bernard worked in the early 1940s with George Daniels on his Psychosomatic Service at the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

Division of Child Psychiatry. Viola W. Bernard Endowment Fund for Research in Child Psychiatry, 1979-1996

(2.25 boxes/.75 cubic feet)

Publicity materials, fundraising records, project applications and awards; the Fund was established by Bernard in 1980.

Combined Case Seminars, 1956-1957, 1964-1965, 1988

(1 box; .35 cubic feet)

The bulk of the series is comprised of the cases presented for study at these monthly, multidisciplinary conferences sponsored by the Department of Psychiatry and the Presbyterian Hospital Social Services Department. They were meant to develop a more comprehensive approach to patient care and were attended by residents in psychiatry, social work staff, and students. All names and identifying information have been redacted from the cases.

6.4: Columbia University School of Public Health: General, 1949-1998

(1 box; .35 cubic feet)

Administrative correspondence and teaching materials for Bernard's courses. Most of the records relating to Bernard's founding and leadership of the School's Division of Community and Social Psychiatry can be found in Sub-Series 6.6.

6.5: National Institute of Mental Health, 1963-1969

(1 box; .35 cubic feet)

Conference transcripts and proceedings; background materials; papers given by Bernard; and literature on community psychiatry.

The National Institute of Mental Health convened three Training Institutes to develop a curriculum for training psychiatrists and other mental health professionals in community psychiatry. Bernard took part in two of the meetings, at Arden House in New York and in Berkeley, California, where she worked closely with Portia Bell Hume on the conference organization.

6.6: School of Public Health. Division of Community and Social Psychiatry, 1951-1992

(23 boxes; 7.7 cubic feet)

Records documenting the many projects undertaken by the Division during Bernard's leadership including cooperative ventures with the Midtown Manhattan Study, a pioneering mental health survey; the therapeutic community of Geel, Belgium; and the Washington Heights Community Mental Health Project and its related community mental health center. After Bernard stepped down as director, she became medical director of the Family Development Research Unit (FDRU), a joint project of the School of Public Health and the Dept. of Child Psychiatry, which studied childbearing, family formation and family planning whose records are also in this series.

Bernard founded the Division of Community Psychiatry (its name until 1967) in 1956 as a joint undertaking of the Department of Psychiatry and the Columbia University School of Public Health; she remained its head until 1969. The Division consisted of three sections: training, program development, and community and social psychiatry research. The Division offered courses leading to a Master of Public Health degree, and drew students from several disciplines - psychiatry, psychology, nursing, social work, and health care administration. The Division's training program provided individualized field placements, in addition to the didactic coursework, that offered the student real-world experience as a member of a community psychiatry team in New York City clinics, hospitals, schools, and social service agencies.

The subseries is organized into the following categories:

General, 1951-1983

(7.25 boxes; 2.5 cubic feet)

Correspondence, committee minutes, course descriptions, seminar transcripts and printed material.

Training Institute in Community Psychiatry with Boston University Psychiatry Department, 1967-1969

(.25 cubic feet)

Grant application to National Institute of Mental Health, minutes, evaluations.

Psychiatry & Law, 1962-1969

(4 folders)

Seminar material.

Midtown Manhattan Study, 1962-1983

(3 folders)

The bulk of the records post-date the original study and relate to a proposed sequel project.

Geel, Therapeutic Community in Belgium, 1959-1998

(2 boxes; .65 cubic feet)

Records of the Division's involvement in the family care program for the mentally ill in Geel, Belgium.

Washington Heights Community Mental Health Project (Grant OM-82), 1957-1983

(2.25 boxes; .75 cubic feet)

Correspondence, minutes, grant applications, progress reports, research reports, and articles relating to this mental health survey in the School of Public Health's neighborhood of Washington Heights in northern Manhattan.

Washington Heights Community Mental Health Center, 1963-1992 (CMHC)

(7.25 boxes; 6.5 cubic feet)

Records relating to the planning and development of this proposed community mental health center, which Bernard was in charge of developing. Included are a wide array of planning documents relating to both the physical and administrative structure of the center; records of community reaction and involvement; and relevant literature. The center was never built due to neighborhood-University tensions, which were particularly intense in the late 1960s.

Infertility Study, 1947-1968

(2 boxes; .65 cubic feet)

Proposals, grant applications, funding records, progress reports and relevant literature relating to this Bernard research project.

6.7: Family Development Research Unit (FDRU), 1966-1975

(30 boxes; 10 cubic feet)

Administrative and research records; reports and papers; bibliographies; sample case histories; transcripts of group discussions; and relevant scientific literature documenting this long-term study of childbearing, family formation, and family planning.

The Family Development Research Unit (FDRU) evolved from Bernard's work on infertility at the Division of Community and Social Psychiatry. After leaving the Division as Director in 1969, she served as Medical Director of the FDRU until its closing in 1975. The Family Development Research Unit was under the joint auspices of the Division of Community and Social Psychiatry at the School of Public Health and the Division of Child Psychiatry of the Department of Psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

FDRU expanded Bernard's long interest in psychogenic infertility and other psychological issues of childbearing to a broader focus on the psychodynamics of "normal" family formation itself. The subjects were recruited from a variety of sources in an attempt to create a multi-racial, multi-ethnic urban sample of couples without any overt psychopathology or fertility problems.

The research, grounded in psychoanalytic and social-psychiatric theory, developed some interesting projective techniques and other innovative research methods, including one of the earliest known uses of videotape to record couples' communications and discussions of their plans, fears, hopes and fantasies about childbearing. Investigators also recorded a role-playing exercise using a baby doll in which couples were able to anticipate what parenting would be like. A number of couples were followed over several years, from before conception until after the birth of a child; some couples remained in the study during a second pregnancy.

The qualitative data collected, the long-term nature of the research and the heavy use of transcribed audio and videotaped interviews all contributed to difficult and expensive data analysis. Methodological problems included frequent changes in the projective measures used by psychologists on the research team. Although several papers were published from the early research results, and Bernard presented some of the data at professional meetings, she ultimately believed she had failed to achieve the scientific goals she set for herself in this research.

The project terminated in 1975 when the FDRU lost its University-provided space. The voluminous records were retained for years and some post-research analysis was attempted in the mid-1970s. Given privacy concerns regarding the audio and videotape data, and considering the social changes of the late 1960s and the rise of the women's movement, Bernard thought the data would be more useful to social historians than to social psychiatrists and questioned the value of keeping the enormous volume of raw data. After consultation with colleagues, she decided that a sub-set of the data should be retained to illustrate the research methods, but that the full data set should be discarded.

This series therefore contains a complete listing of the entire subject pool and the data collected, but only a sub-sample of the raw data has been retained. Several representative videotapes have been remastered from the original SONY early-format reels, and are included in Records Series 17. The sample cases include background information and session transcripts and, in addition, there are transcripts of selected group discussions. The administrative records are complete, and the Unit's extensive collection of scientific literature, which colleagues urged Bernard to keep, is included in its entirety. All names and personally identifying information have been excised from the records, which are open without restriction.

The subseries is organized into the following categories:

Administrative Records

Research Records

Research Reports and Papers

Bibliographies and Related Literature

Sample Cases

Group Discussions

Scientific Literature on Fertility and Family Development

6.8: Columbia University Crisis, Racism and Antiwar Movement, 1968-1989

(1.5 boxes; .5 cubic feet)

Correspondence, some with student protestors; newspaper clippings; reports; and other printed material documenting campus unrest in the 1960s in general, and at Columbia University in particular. See also Record Series 14, Activist Psychiatry & Political Psychology.

6.9: Post-Division & Post- Retirement Activities, 1969-1986

(.5 box; .15 cubic feet)

Post-retirement correspondence.

Series VII Consultantancies

Boxes 146-203

Besides her work at Columbia University, Bernard had a long career as a consultant, board member or advisor to numerous child welfare and educational institutions, both non-profit and governmental, in the New York metropolitan region. She worked closely with such women as Justine Wise Polier, Marion Kenworthy and Barbara Biber in many of these organizations.

Subseries are as follows:

7.1: Community Service Society, 1943-1959

(.25 cubic feet)

Cases, seminar materials and general administrative records.

7.2: The Wiltwyck Sch​​ool for Boys, Inc., 1941-1992

(6 boxes; 2 cubic feet)

Correspondence; Board of Directors' minutes; Committee on the Treatment Program minutes and correspondence; financial and fundraising records; staff records; newspaper clippings; and research reports and articles. Some folders relating to staffing are closed.

The Wiltwyck School was an inter-racial residential treatment center for emotionally troubled youth. Bernard chaired its Committee on the Treatment Program from 1950 to 1969 and dealt with many other school administrative concerns, including fundraising and personnel issues, as well as dealing with the surrounding community's opposition to a school which largely served young, black, troubled adolescents.

7.3: Northside Center ​for Child Development, 1947-1995

(1 box; .35 cubic feet)

Records include minutes of the Board of Directors, the Executive Committee, and the Professional Advisory Committee; correspondence with Board members and staff; and materials documenting staff conflicts over the appointment of a new clinical director that led to the resignation from Northside of both Bernard and Northside's president, Marion Rosenwald Ascoli, in 1960.

Northside was an interracial clinic for children located in Harlem, founded by Kenneth and Mamie Clark. Bernard headed its executive committee. David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz used material in this series in their 1996 book, Children, Race, and Power: Kenneth and Mamie Clark's Northside Center.

7.4: Louise Wise Services (Child Ado​ption Committee), 1940-1997

(12 boxes; 4 cubic feet)

Extensive records including Board of Directors minutes, 1940-1996; correspondence, 1942-1997; minutes of committees on which Bernard served; subject files on adoption-related topics; and legal records. Some material is restricted.

Louise Wise Services, originally called the Child Adoption Committee, was an adoption and social service agency. It was founded by Louise Wise, the mother of Bernard's close friend and colleague, Justine Wise Polier. Bernard was its Chief Psychiatric Consultant and with Polier, served on its Board of Directors for many years. Bernard was responsible for "professionalizing the agency:" she developed a credentialed professional staff, solicited government funding, and established procedural structure and accountability at an organization which had previously operated in a relatively ad-hoc, informal manner.

7.5: Bank Street Coll​ege of Education, 1942-1993

(4 boxes; 1.35 cubic feet)

Annual reports; historical materials; research reports and articles; and other printed material.

Bernard served Bank Street as psychiatric consultant, research consultant, and advisory committee member. Members of the faculty, notably Barbara Biber and Charlotte Winsor, were part of Bernard's circle of professional collaborators on behalf of children's welfare and mental health.

7.6: Citizens' Com​mittee for Children of New York, Inc. (CCC), 1945-1991

(16 boxes; 5.35 cubic feet)

Board of Directors' minutes, 1945-1967, 1970-1971, and correspondence, 1945-1991. Particularly important are the extensive records of the CCC's Mental Health Section and its numerous subcommittees, most notably the Subcommittee on the Children of Mentally Ill Parents. A large number of CCC publications are also included.

Bernard was a charter member of the Citizens' Committee for Children (CCC) and chaired its Mental Health Section, 1949-1965, during the period of the organization's greatest influence in New York City. Through research, public education and lobbying, the organization acted as an advocate on behalf of New York City's children for improved social conditions. The CCC had a profound impact on legislation, education and social welfare policy in New York City during the post-World War II years.

7.7: Citizens' Committee for Chi​ldren of New York/Bank Street College of Education: Teacher Selection Project, 1945-1968

(6 boxes; 3 cubic feet)

Minutes; correspondence; a wide array of testing materials; and project reports.

The Teacher Selection Project was a pilot study to develop methods of measuring and predicting psychological factors, including authoritarianism, in candidates for teaching positions in the New York City public schools. It was a joint project of the Citizens' Committee for Children of New York and the Bank Street College of Education on behalf of the New York City Board of Examiners. The project sought to develop a scientifically valid method of selecting the best candidates as teachers for the public schools, based on personality traits and social psychological criteria. The underlying premises of the study were grounded in research on the "the authoritarian personality" conducted by Theodor W. Adorno, et al., as reported in their book The Authoritarian Personality [1950].

Both the teachers' union, which saw it as a threat to their members' jobs, and conservative Catholics, who denounced it as a Communist plot, attacked the project. The full study was never carried out.

The newspaper clippings Bernard collected on opposition to the project (Box 191:4) provide a good illustration of the attacks the project suffered, especially those from The Tablet, the newspaper of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn.

7.8: Ethical Culture Schools, 1951-1963

(3 boxes; 1 cubic foot)

Most of the records relate to psychological counseling of students and include several case histories; access is regulated by the Privacy Rule of the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and may only be obtained through the Privacy Board of the Columbia University Medical Center.

Among other records are those of the Sex Education Committee, 1948-1952.

Bernard began as a psychiatric consultant to the Schools in 1943 and was officially appointed consultant to the staff of the guidance department in 1947. She served until 1957.

7.9: New York City Board of Education. Bureau of Child Guidance, 1941-1964

(4 boxes; 1.35 cubic feet)

Although Bernard completed her final year of psychiatric residency training at the Board's Bureau of Child Guidance under the supervision of Max Winsor, most of the records here date to her time as a consultant with the Bureau. There are extensive records of the Advisory Committee to the Survey of the Bureau (1951-1955), which was a comprehensive review of the services and functions of the Bureau, as well as of the later Advisory Committee to the Bureau, on both of which Bernard served.

Also present are two folders of psychiatric examinations of teachers conducted by Bernard in the 1940s (with names redacted) and a considerable amount of relevant scientific articles.

7.10: Mental Health Films, 1938-1994

(4 boxes; 1.35 cubic feet)

Correspondence, scripts, newspaper and magazine articles, and film catalogs documenting Bernard's work as psychiatric consultant on several mental health films. There is much relating to "The Quiet One" (1950), an award-winning film about the Wiltwyck School with a script by James Agee. A copy of "The Quiet One" can be found in Record Series 17.

7.11: Miscellaneous Consultancies, 1944-1989

(1 box; .35 cubic feet)
 

Series VIII Professional Appointments

Boxes 204-216

Minutes, correspondence, reports and printed material documenting Bernard's work on various governmental committees and commissions, comprising 4.35 cubic feet and dating from 1952 to 1993. Arranged in alphabetical order.

The most voluminous and perhaps richest records are from Bernard's work with the New York City Department of Hospitals' Committee on Psychiatric Services for Children (1961-1963) and its successor, the Advisory Committee on Mental Health Services for Children of the New York City Interdepartmental Health Council (1963-1968), both of which she co-chaired with Grace McLean Abbate.

Series IX Professional Organizations

Boxes 217-279

Bernard was active in a remarkable number of professional organizations. The largest and most significant records here document her role in the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychoanalytic Association, and the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry.

Subseries are as follows:

9.1: American Academy of Child Psychiatry (AACP), 1959-1997

(2 boxes; .7 cubic feet)

Annual meeting records, committee minutes and printed matter, including newsletters, of the Academy of which Bernard was a founder, charter member, and Fellow. She sat on its Committee on Community Child Psychiatry and briefly served as the AACP Treasurer.

9.2: American College ​of Psychiatrists (ACP), 1967-1995

(.15 cubic feet)

Largely annual meeting programs, 1974-1993, with gaps. Bernard was an Emeritus Fellow of the ACP.

9.3: American College of Psychoanalysts (ACPsan), 1975-1995

(.15 cubic feet)

Largely annual meeting programs, 1978-1995, with gaps. Bernard was a Fellow.

9.4: Am​erican Orthopsychiatric Association (Ortho), 1943-1993

(2 boxes; .70 cubic feet)

Annual meeting records and committee minutes. Bernard was a Fellow of Ortho.

9.5: American Psychiatric Association (APA), 1948-1998

(16 boxes; 5 cubic feet)

Annual meeting records, committee minutes, printed material. Bernard chaired the APA's Commission on Childhood & Adolescence, 1973-1976, and its Council on Children, Adolescents & Their Families, 1976-1977. In 1971, as part of an opposition faction within the APA, she was elected Vice President in the first-ever dual-slate election in the organization's history.

The largest amount of records documents her chairmanship of the Council on Children, Adolescents & Their Families which Bernard used to establish a permanent focus on the psychiatric needs of children, something she believed had been neglected by the psychiatric profession. Her campaign to have the APA support action-oriented research on the issue of nuclear war is well documented in the records of the Council on National Affairs, 1984-1992.

Other committees on which Bernard served include the Committee on Social Work, 1948-1954; the Conference on Graduate Psychiatric Education, 1961-1962; and the Task Force on Transcultural Aspects of Ethnocentricity Among Psychiatrists, 1973-1976.

9.6: American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA), 1945-1997

(14 boxes; 4.7 cubic feet)

Correspondence, minutes, annual meeting materials and other records of Bernard's involvement with the Association. The bulk of this series (7 boxes) documents her leadership of the Committee on Psychoanalysis, Community and Society (originally, the Committee on Community Psychiatry), 1968-1978. She remained a member for many years after stepping down as chair.

The Committee pursued three main projects: developing a curriculum on psychoanalysis in the community; creating an instrument for evaluating community mental health programs; and planning a book, under the co-editorship of Bernard and Jules V. Coleman, on interrelationships between psychoanalysis and community psychiatry ("the Reader"). The manuscript was never completed but extensive correspondence and financial records relating to the project can be found in this series. Drafts of many of the articles that were to be included in the Reader can be found in Record Series 16. Committee records also include the evaluation instrument, audiotapes of meetings and a bibliography.

9.7: Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP), 1946-1998

(20 boxes; 6.7 cubic feet)

The bulk of the series documents Bernard's role as member, 1947-1977, and chair, 1955-1958, of the GAP Committee on Social Issues. It includes correspondence, minutes and reports (including drafts) on such topics as nuclear war, group violence and the effects of television on children. GAP committees each selected a topic for study and produced a report of its findings, usually including recommendations for action. Included here are two sets of these GAP reports, 1947-1996: the bound set is complete for 1947-1977, while the loose set includes most, though not all, of those issued in 1978-1996.

Bernard was also responsible for organizing in1958 an exhibit on right-wing health extremists and anti-psychiatry forces in general. She acquired a great deal of ephemeral material documenting opposition to fluoridation and the new polio vaccine, as well as on right-wing efforts to link the "mental health movement" with communism. Presented at a GAP symposium, efforts to bring the exhibit to a wider audience were stymied due to legal concerns. Bernard, however, continued to add to her collection into the 1960s.

Bernard was a long-term member of the GAP Publications Committee. However, most of her own Publications Committee files are at the Oskar Diethelm Library at the Payne Whitney Clinic of the New York-Weill Cornell Medical Center. Bernard earlier donated them to complement Marion E. Kenworthy's GAP papers, which the Diethelm Library holds. Publications Committee records here post-date that donation.

The Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP) was founded in 1946 by a group of socially concerned psychiatrists who believed psychiatry must be aware of and active in the social and political milieu in which it operates. Bernard was a charter member of GAP and served on its board of directors from 1961 to 1963, and again from 1972 to 1975.

9.8: Other Professional Organ​izations, 1944-1995

(7 boxes; 2.35 cubic feet)

Arranged alphabetically.

Series X Professional Presentatio​ns (Talks and Courses)

Boxes 280-287

Talks and courses ​given by Bernard, 1941-1987 (2.66 cubic feet). Includes transcripts or notes of talks; newsclippings; programs; and sometimes correspondence. Earlier folders sometimes contain only correspondence. Arranged chronologically.

Series XI Professional Publications

Boxes 288-292

Arranged chronologically, 1942-1998; a complete bibliography of Bernard's publications can be found in Box 288, folder 1. (1.66 cubic feet)

Series XII Clinical Rec​ords

Boxes 293-307 [RESTRICTED]

Records of Bernard’s clinical training and practice, 1938-1992 (5 cubic feet). These are divided into four categories: cases from her residency training at Grasslands Hospital in Valhalla, N.Y. (1938-1939) and at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Hospital (1939-1940), an affiliate of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons; supervisory and trainee cases, 1946-1972 at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research; and four long-term cases from her private practice dating from 1938 into the 1990s.  The fourth category is the record of her treatment of a notable American poet in the 1960s. In 2016, additional records of long-term cases were discovered in the records of her late assistant, Dr. Kathleen Kelly.  These were added to the papers in Boxes 381-382 as accession #2106.007.

Case records may include notes; medical reports; correspondence with the patient and others; patient journals; transcripts and/or audiotapes of sessions; and newspaper clippings. 

Bernard wished the records of the poet’s case retained because she felt her treatment had been misrepresented in the standard biography of the patient.  These records are closed until January 1, 2050 after which they will be open without restrictions, if permitted under HIPAA.

All other records in this series are permanently restricted and many are closed for a specified period; see the folder list for more details. Access after the closure period will be regulated by the Privacy Rule of the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Series XIII Social and Political Issues

Boxes 308-321

Records of Bernard's involvement in several important social and political issues, including her work with and for refugees from Nazi Germany during World War II; her blacklisting by the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare during the McCarthy period; and her role in the Alger Hiss case.

Subseries are as follows:

13.1: World War II, 1939-1994

(2 boxes; .7 cubic feet)

Records documenting Bernard's work with refugees and conscientious objectors during World War II. Important material includes notes and correspondence from her summer 1939 trip to Europe to assess the plight of refugee children in Britain and France for the Non-Sectarian Committee for German Refugee Children (photos of this trip can be found in Record Series 17); records and photo albums documenting the use of Sky Island, her mother's country home in Nyack, N.Y., as a summer hostel for war refugees (the albums are in Record Series 17); and her work as a consultant for the American Friends Service Committee. Bernard was interviewed about her work on behalf of refugees for an episode of the PBS series "American Experience;" see Record Series 17 for the videotape.

13.2: Louis S. Weiss Committee, 1949-1961

(1 box; .35 cubic feet)

Records of a committee established to oppose the U.S. Loyalty Oath of the late 1940s-1950s.

13.3: McCarthyism and HEW Blacklisting, 1933-1989

(3 boxes; 1 cubic feet)

The bulk of the records is evidence gathered by Bernard in response to an interrogatory from the Federal Security Agency in 1951-1952. Included is information on Bernard's financial support of The People's Press in the 1930s, and other records of her political activities in that decade not documented elsewhere in her papers. A resume and an exhaustive listing of all her residences from 1922 to 1951, compiled in response to FSA's inquiry, provides a compact biography of Bernard up to the early 1950s (Box 311:4). There is also material relating to the renewal of her passport, and magazine and newspaper articles on other victims of McCarthyism, especially Robert Oppenheimer. This series also has the records released in response to Bernard's Freedom of Information (FOIA) request in 1986.

13.4: Alger Hiss, 1948-1998

(5 boxes; 1.7 cubic feet)

Bernard was deeply involved in the Hiss case both as a consultant to his lawyers and as a friend and counselor of the Hiss family. Like many who lived through the controversy, Bernard remained fascinated by the case until her death, as evidenced by the rich collection she amassed of newspaper clippings, magazine articles, and books on it.

Among the highlights in this series are Bernard's notes of her interview with Alger Hiss (1949); the personality profile of Whittaker Chambers she developed for the Hiss defense team; her extensive correspondence with Hiss's son, Tony, and stepson, Timothy Hobson; her notes of the trials, taken by her while in attendance; clippings from most of the major New York newspapers for each day of the trials; and correspondence with later historians of the case, including John Chabot Smith, John A.P. Millet and Allen Weinstein. There is also an extensive collection of literature about Hiss, Chambers and the case including most of the major books published on the controversy into the 1990s

Bernard donated her annotated transcripts of both trials to the library of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.

13.5: Politics & Civic Issues, General, 1945-1992

(1.5 boxes; .45 cubic feet)

Largely printed material collected by Bernard on a variety of political, environmental, foreign policy and mental health issues.

13.6: Periodicals and Propaganda, 1936-1960

(.35 cubic feet)

Largely from 1936-1945; arranged in rough chronological order.

Series XIV Activist Psy​chiatry & Political Psychology 

Boxes 321-348

With the exception of the subseries on nuclear war and on racism, most of this series is comprised of secondary literature collected by Bernard.

Subseries are as follows:

14.1: Gener​al, 1948-1989

(.35 cubic feet)

14.2: Al​ternative Treatment & Radical Health Movements, 1943-1988

(.35 cubic feet)

14.3: Death & Dyi​ng, 1955-1990

(.35 cubic feet)

Includes records of the Foundation of Thanatology.

14.4: Dehumanizatio​n Concept & Modern War, 1941-1992

(.35 cubic feet)

Includes notes and drafts of "Dehumanization: A Composite Psychological Defense in Relation to Modern War" by Bernard, Percy Ottenberg, and Fritz Redl (1965).

14.5: Nuclear Issues, 1933-1997

(8 boxes; 2.7 cubic feet)

The bulk of the series documents Bernard's involvement with the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs and includes correspondence, conference programs and papers, newsletters, and other printed matter. There are also substantial records of her role in International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and similar organizations. In addition, there is much general and scientific printed material on the issue.

The prevention of nuclear war was one of Bernard's abiding causes. She periodically attended the Pugwash Conferences from 1963 on, and in 1981 served as a delegate to the first congress of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

14.6: Families and Children, 1942-1992

(2 boxes; .7 cubic feet)

Arranged alphabetically by topic.

14.7: Contraception and Abortion, 1938-1993

(.35 cubic feet)

Arranged alphabetically by topic.

14.8: Poverty, 1958-1991

(2 boxes; .7 cubic feet)

Arranged in rough chronological order.

14.9: Racism, 1933-1997

(5.5 boxes; 1.75 cubic feet)

Records documenting Bernard's activism in race relations. The most important material relates to her pioneering efforts to open up postgraduate psychiatric and psychoanalytic education to African American doctors in the 1950s and 1960s. Bernard once remarked that she would feel that her job had been done when she no longer knew personally every African-American psychiatrist in the United States. See also Sub-Series 4.1 for correspondence with African American psychiatrists Elizabeth Davis, James Curtis, and Margaret Morgan Lawrence.

14.10: USSR and Psychiatry, 1958-1990

(.4 cubic feet)

Largely printed material on the Soviet abuse of psychiatry

14.11: Other Topics, 1937-1996

(4 boxes; 1.35 cubic feet)

Arranged alphabetically.

Series XV Professional Publications: Others

Boxes 349-360

15.1: Core Reprints, 1932-1984

(5 boxes; 1.7 cubic feet)

Arranged alphabetically.

15.2: Core Literature: Publications on which Bernard was consulted or involved, 1945-1998

(6 boxes; 2 cubic feet)

15.3: Core Literature: Psychiatry and Law Publications, 1953-1983

(1 box; .35 cubic feet)

Series XVI Community Psychiatry "Reader"

Boxes 361-365

16.1: Contributing Authors, 1972-1988

(2.5 boxes; .85 cubic feet)

Correspondence, drafts, and other material related to the authors who contributed - or in some cases, sought to contribute - to the "Reader" on psychoanalysis and community psychiatry for which Bernard served as co-editor with Jules V. Coleman. The Reader, a product of the Committee on Psychoanalysis, Community and Society (originally, the Committee on Community Psychiatry) of the American Psychoanalytic Association, was never completed. Most of the administrative records of this project may be found in Sub- Series 9.6, American Psychoanalytic Association.

16.2: General, 1960s-1980s

(2.5 boxes; .85 cubic feet)

Outlines, drafts of the introduction and relevant literature.

Series XVII Non-print Media/Separated & Oversize Records

Boxes 366-378; Oversize Boxes 1-5; 3 Map Case Folders

17.1: Audiotapes

17.2: Film & Videotapes

17.3: Photographs

17.4: Separated, Oversize and Fragile Material

17.5: Records on vinyl (78 and 33 rpm)

17.6: Artifacts and Ephemera