Sedgwick, W. T. (William Thompson), 1855-1921

Biologist; taught chemistry, biology, public health at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1883-1921; biologist for Massachusetts Board of Health, 1888-1896; curator, Lowell Institute in Boston, 1897-1921; trustee and director of several health-related institutions; advisor to state and federal government.

Biologist; taught chemistry, biology, public health at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1883-1921; biologist for Massachusetts Board of Health, 1888-1896; curator, Lowell Institute in Boston, 1897-1921; trustee and director of several health-related institutions; advisor to state and federal government.

William Thompson Sedgwick (1855-1921), educator and bacteriologist, was one of the founders of the American public health profession. Educated at Yale (Ph.B., Sheffield Scientific School, 1877) and Johns Hopkins (Ph.D., 1881), Sedgwick taught at Johns Hopkins, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard. He was responsible for founding schools of public health in both M.I.T. and Harvard.

The Sedgwick Papers at Yale were collected by C.-E.A. Winslow while he was preparing a biography of Sedgwick, A Pioneer of Public Health--William Thompson Sedgwick (1924) with E.O. Jordan and G.C. Whipple. The papers are made up of one and one-half linear feet of material that is arranged in four series: CORRESPONDENCE, RESEARCH MATERIAL, WRITINGS, and BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL. Although the manuscript group is fragmentary and incomplete, it represents the largest extant collection of Sedgwick's papers.

CORRESPONDENCE spans the years 1878 to 1920 and consists of correspondence from students and colleagues. The 1906 correspondence from students on the occasion of Sedgwick's thirtieth anniversary in teaching is of special interest. RESEARCH MATERIAL is largely undated and fragmentary and concerns bacteriological studies of milk. WRITINGS extends from 1879 to 1920 and includes articles, lecture notes and texts, reports, essays and occasional programs. BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL includes a lengthy tribute to Sedgwick by George C. Whipple.

The Sedgwick Papers are part of the Contemporary Medical Care and Health Policy Collection, and they were originally accessioned as part of the papers of C.-E.A. Winslow. For additional Sedgwick correspondence see the Winslow Papers (MS 749).