Summer School

Under Jellinek’s leadership, the curriculum was determined by the faculty of the Section of Alcohol Studies in Yale’s Laboratory of Applied Physiology, which was directed by Howard Haggard with Leon A. Greenberg as the co-director. Eight courses of study, which were subdivided into segments, served as the School’s framework in 1943, including an introductory course; psychological aspects; alcohol and traffic; personality, constitution and alcohol; statistics of the alcohol problem; social measures in the prevention of inebriety; legislative control of the alcoholic beverage trade; and religion and the prevention and treatment of alcoholism. The topics were split into a number of lectures. 

Representing physiology, medicine, psychiatry, sociology, anthropology, psychology, religion, law, economics, and other related fields, lecturers were selected from the Yale faculty and other institutions of education and public service who had conducted original research on these problems, collaborating extensively with members of the larger community, including Alcoholics Anonymous, alcohol beverage industry representatives, clergy members, authorities in criminal justice and education, medical practitioners, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and more.

Jellinek invited renowned experts as lecturers, including Leon Greenberg, Ph.D., a Yale faculty member, Norman Jolliffe, M.D., an Associate Professor of Medicine at New York University, Giorgio Lolli, M.D., a research assistant in Applied Physiology at Yale University, Rev. Francis McPeek, the Executive Director of Social Welfare, Federation of Churches, Washington, D.C., Anne Roe, Ph.D., Secretary, Psychological Section, New York Academy of Science, Harry M. Tiebout, M.D., Physician-in-charge, Blythewood Sanitarium, and William Wilson, Director, Alcoholics Anonymous.

The program brochures, now available in RUcore, the Rutgers University Community Repository, provide a glimpse into the evolving curriculum over the decades. The faculty in each school represents an impressive cross-section of scholars and educators in the field over the decades. From simple to more complex in their forms and presentations, these brochures serve as evidence of the unique opportunity the Summer School provided for the dedicated students. The spirit that Jellinek instilled from day one lasted longer, as shown in the group photos.

Due to the size of Yale's facility, attendance was limited to 80 students out of 250 applicants for the first school. As a result, there was a strong demand for written copies of the lectures that had been delivered. However, only a condensed version of some of the lectures was made available under the title Abridged Lectures of the First (1943) Summer Course on Alcohol Studies at Yale University.

Considering the interest after the first successful school, all lectures were recorded in 1944. All but four were edited and compiled into a single volume, Alcohol, Science and Society, including lectures and the discussions that followed them. Representing a variety of disciplines—from biochemistry and psychology to sociology and law—that together constituted the nascent science of alcohol, the 29 lectures were reprinted for the next ten years and served as educational materials in college courses and other institutes devoted to examining the problems of alcoholism.

Jellinek contributed to this book with the following four lectures.

1. Introduction to the curriculum / E.M. Jellinek 

2. The problems of alcohol / E.M. Jellinek

7. Effects of small amounts of alcohol on psychological functions / E.M. Jellinek 

9. Heredity of the alcoholic / E.M. Jellinek