Includes correspondence, 1912-1989; topical files; speeches, class notes and other writings; clippings; records of professoinal meetings and other travels; papers of her husband, Dr. George Henry Zerbst (1892-1953); awards, certificates, and diplomas, 1912-1987; photographs, 1917-1973; and audio recording, 1985, of Dr. Sheriff reading a draft of her paper, "Women in Medicine" (T75). Correspondence, 1922-1940, documents problems of female student and doctor encounters in a male-dominated profession, her shared concerns with all medical students and fledgling doctors (such as selecting her area of specialization and deciding where to locate her practice), and her comments on medicine in general in the Southeast. Present in the collection is a draft of a constitution, ca. 1924, for an organization of women medical students of South Carolina, the Asklepiads. Papers of Dr. George Henry Zerbst (1892-1953) include correspondence dating to 1926 when Sheriff was in Philadelphia on a twelve-month internship which included work in various departments. Zerbst was an ophthalmologist who served as one of Dr. Sheriff's instructors while she attended the Medical College; the couple married in 1940. Her letters describe the cases in which she was most interested, the internship itself, her relations with co-workers, and her ambitions. Zerbst maintained a private practice in Charleston, S.C., at various times during the 1920s and 1930s, but found it difficult to earn a satisfactory income. During 1924-1925, he worked at the Episcopal Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital in Washington, D.C. He returned to Charleston but by 1928 was convinced that he would have to go elsewhere, "The cotton depression has knocked business out down here. It never was very much but of late it has been still worse." Other correspondents include Hilla's friends George W. Connor II, a Spartanburg native who worked as a clerk for the Clinchfield Coal Corporation in Dante, Va., and who wrote lengthy and descriptive letters describing his daily life and the operation of mines; and Dr. John Fabian Busch, a college classmate who found, like Sheriff and Zerbst, that during the Depression the steady income of public health was more desirable than the uncertain economics of private practice -- and who by 1936 was serving as Superintendent of the Greenville County Tuberculosis Sanatorium. Photographs in the collection are portraits and snapshots of Dr. Sheriff and her husband taken throughout their lives, as well as pictures showing the work being done in both Spartanburg County, ca. 1933-1940, and the state health department. One carton located offsite contains background research files, 1974-1991, and the resulting 2 documentaries re Sheriff's career and work with midwives in S.C.; these materials, collected by Julia Lumpkin, consist of two completed documentaries: "Carrying Health to the Country" (4 copies on DVD, 1 on videotape) and "Delivered with Love" (1 copy on DVD); Research files (18 May 1987-1 Nov 1988); Scripts (Jan. - Feb. 1988); Transcriptions (undated); Newspaper clippings (1974-16 Feb. 1986); Maternal and child health (Jan 1974-1988); Brochures, programs (Mar 1988-May 1991)
