Skip to main content

Introduction

Introduction

The Alcohol Studies exhibit highlights the unique resources amassed at the Yale and Rutgers Centers of Alcohol Studies over more than eighty years. As a leader in research, education, and training on alcohol and other drugs, the Rutgers Center has been both a vital part of the field's history and a crucial institutional repository for preserving and disseminating that history, dating back to its inaugural survey of scientific literature on alcohol in 1940.

Creating history - Preserving history

This exhibit showcases the treasures of the Digital Alcohol Studies Archives, which aims to preserve resources formerly available for researchers at the Library and Archives at the Center of Alcohol and Substance Use Studies.

The Rutgers Center of Alcohol and Substance Use Studies is the first interdisciplinary research center devoted to alcohol use and alcohol-related problems and treatment. Evolving in the late 1930s and 1940s at the Yale University Laboratory of Applied Physiology and Biodynamics, which was directed by Yale physician Howard W. Haggard, the Section on Alcohol Studies, headed by E. M. Jellinek, pursued studies of the effects of alcohol on the body, which broadened into a wide perspective of alcohol-related problems. Another of Dr. Haggard’s contributions to the field was founding the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol in 1940.

The increasing demand for information about alcoholism led the Center to found the Summer School of Alcohol Studies in 1943. In 1944, the Center also began the Yale Plan Clinics, the first-ever outpatient facility for the treatment of alcoholism. The Yale Plan for Business and Industry, the forerunner of current-day employee assistance programs, also began in the mid-1940s in response to requests from businesses and industries having to cope with employment shortages during World War II. 

Since moving to Rutgers University in 1962, the Center has continued its tradition through research programs and pre- and postdoctoral training in various disciplines, including clinical and experimental psychology, neuropharmacology, psychophysiology, sociology, public health, social work, and prevention. This exhibit is based on the Rutgers Digital Alcohol Studies Archives, hosted by Rutgers University Libraries.

rucore image 69302

Smithers Hall, Busch Campus, the home of the Rutgers Center of Alcohol and Substance Use Studies

This architect's sketch depicts the Smithers Hall to be built on Busch Campus through the generosity of R. Brinkley Smithers and the Christopher D. Smithers Foundation to provide offices, conference space, and laboratories for biological and psychological research. From the 1963 issue of the Alumni News.

Housed in the Rutgers University Libraries collection after the transfer from the Center of Alcohol Studies in 2016, the digitized items in this exhibit represent only a small fragment of the unparalleled print collection, the first of its kind.

While not intended as a comprehensive overview of mid-20th-century alcohol history, the exhibit also pays tribute to all scholars, researchers, educators, librarians, and staff members at the Center who were instrumental in collecting and preserving these documents, pictures, and artifacts to record a significant part of the history of science and how the Center contributed to it.

About the exhibit

The exhibit showcases many "firsts" in alcohol studies, including the Summer School of Alcohol Studies, related to the Center. Two influential scholars, E. M. Jellinek and Mark Keller, are highlighted with unique documents and artifacts available only at Rutgers. Temperance-related content is viewed through the lens of the collection as a source of research at the Center.

rucore image 69749

The first scholarly Journal in alcohol studies in the U.S.

Established in 1940 at Yale, the journal and the center that evolved around it were part of a larger international revival of alcohol studies that started after World War II, resulting in the launching of many of the "firsts" in alcohol studies.
rucore image 69509

Summer School of Alcohol Studies 

The first Summer School of Alcohol Studies, held in 1943, laid the foundations of modern alcohol education.
rucore image 73641

The mysterious E. M. Jellinek

An online tribute to E. M. Jellinek (1890–1963), one of the most influential personalities in the field of alcohol studies, this exhibit aims to provide a glimpse into Jellinek’s colorful personality and exceptional scholarship, based on the content initially compiled in the library in 2013-2015 to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Jellinek's birth.
rucore image 73685

Mark Keller Collection

The papers of "documentalist" Mark Keller, a pivotal figure in the mid-20th century alcohol studies as as bibliographer, editor, and facilitator of research, can be considered as one of the finest collections of primary source materials in the entire field.
rucore image 69359

Temperance Tales

Telling "Temperance Tales," this exhibit represents a small fragment of the collection, replacing the defunct Alcohol History Database with illustrations.
About the Center and the Journal
About the Digital Alcohol Studies Collection 

From the Digital Alcohol Studies Archives

Visit the Rutgers Digital Alcohol Studies Archives!