Scope and Contents
Many of the materials in this collection were created by and for occupational therapists, but the collection also contains a number of materials created by practitioners of other fields and of particular interest and use to OTs. Related fields that are represented in the collection include arts and crafts, medicine, and special education. The collection contains materials representing professional practice and research, professional association activities, and educational practices.
These materials include newsletters and newsmagazines, directories, conference programs and proceedings, syllabi and curriculum materials, monographs, brochures, catalogs, and product information. Many of the materials are profusely illustrated with photographs or drawings, in particular series VII (Assistive d~vices, orthotics, and prosthetics) and series VIII (Creative and manual skills). Series IV (Education of occupational therapists) contains a number of unusual formats. These include student and instructor notes from the 1940s and the 1970s, student arts and crafts projects from the 1940s, patient records used for teaching in the 1970s, and audiotapes for faculty development dating from 1981.
A number of the materials in this collection can be identified by owner. This is particularly true of series VIII (Creative and manual skills), which contains materials owned by Joanna Ballou, Eleanor Kille, Ruth Levine, Clare Spackman and Helen Willard
Biographical / Historical
The earliest forms of occupational therapy began in the United States in the early 18th century as a treatment for psychiatric patients. This form of therapy had its roots in the European concept of "moral treatment" for the mentally ill, an approach that advocated the use of occupations, including exercise, labor, and music, and non-restraint. After the Civil War, this approach lost favor, as institutions for persons with mental illness grew larger and patient populations grew more diverse. In the early 20th century social reformers began to advocate for improvements in mental hospitals that had reverted to mere custodial facilities. The use of "invalid occupations," and in particular the use of arts and crafts as a way to improve a patient's mental and physical condition, was advocated by several progressive nurses and physicians at this time. Notable among them were Susan Tracy, a nursing instructor who published her lectures in 1910, and Dr. William Rush Dunton, Jr., an advocate of training nurses to carry out occupational work with patients. Dunton, who published his ideas on this subject in a 1915 manual for nurses, is credited with being the first to use the term "occupation therapy." In 1917, Dunton and five associates founded the National Society for the Promotion of Occupational Therapy for the purpose of promoting and publicizing the new field. In 1921, the group changed its name to the American Occupational Therapy Association.
During World War I, the need to provide occupational therapy to disabled soldiers was recognized and advanced, in particular at Walter Reed General Hospital. During this period, the concepts of individual prescriptions for each patient, and careful measuring and recording of progress were elaborated. Also at this time, federal regulatory decisions placed occupational therapy under the authority of the medical profession, and occupational therapy services in hospital,s expanded. Following World War II, the profession benefited from the designation of physical medicine as a practice specialty. The first major textbook in the field, Willard and Spackman's Occupational Therapy was first published in 1947.
Although more than half of all occupational therapists worked primarily in mental health through the late sixties, starting in the forties increased emphasis was placed on working with the physically disabled. OTs began to specialize in rehabilitation, including training patients in the use of prosthetics, and developing orthotic devices. During the forties and fifties, OTs became more specialized, and training programs for OTs began including more medical content within a diagnostic framework. Graduate programs in occupational therapy began in the 1960s and expanded through the 1980s. During this time period, the movement to deinstitutionalize mental patients, and the continuing move ,to shift health care away from the hospital and into outpatient settings had a major impact on how and where occupational therapists practiced.
In 1981, Thomas Jefferson University formally established its Department of Occupational Therapy, following a study initiated by the Dean of the College of Allied and Health Sciences, which indicated a growing need for rehabilitative services in the Philadelphia area. Program planning and curriculum development began in 1982 with Ruth Ellen Levine as program consultant, Roseann C. Schaaf~ consultant for basic science and neurodevelopmental curriculum, and Ellen L. Kolodner planning the psychosocial component of the curriculum. All three of them joined the full-time faculty, with Levine, formerly a professor at Temple University, serving as the first chair of the department. The department offered both a two-year, upper division baccalaureate program and a certificate post-baccalaureate program. In 1985, the department received official accreditation from the American Medical Association in collaboration with the American Occupational Therapy Association, and had its first graduates in June of that year. In 1987, the department initiated a Master of Science degree program to focus on leadership, management and research skills.