Arrangement and Description of Peterborough's Historical Hospital Records Includes
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Arrangement and Description of Peterborough’s Historical Hospital Records Includes: Final Report By Rebecca Lindsay Completed for: Peterborough Museum and Archive Supervising Professor: Sharon Beaucage-Johnson, Trent University Trent Centre for Community-Based Education Department: Forensics Course Code: 4890Y Course Name: Forensic Community-Based Education Research Project Term: Fall/Winter 2011-12 Date of Project Submission: April 2012 Project ID: 4219 Call Number: Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... 4 Ket Research Terms ........................................................................................................................ 5 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 6 Methods ........................................................................................................................................ 10 Results ........................................................................................................................................... 15 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 19 Literature Cited ............................................................................................................................. 24 Appendix 1 .................................................................................................................................... 25 3 Abstract Since 1885, there have been four Protestant hospitals in Peterborough, Ontario – Moira Hall, Nicholls Hospital, Peterborough Civic Hospital (PCH) and Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC). The administration records of these hospitals have been collected into the Peterborough Regional Health Centre Archives along with material from independent hospital organizations such as the Women’s Auxiliary, School of Nursing Alumnae and the Museum and Archives Collection. The majority of the material within the archive was received from the administrative body of which the records originated and secondarily from private donors; the records are currently located at the Peterborough Museum and Archives. The hospital archive was divided into fonds at the main level description, then sous-fonds as subcategories followed by series as the lowest level of description. The research project objectives include creating an inventory of the material to serve as a finding aid, arranging the material in an accessible manner by grouping similar records together and to write archival descriptions to describe the archive contents in detail. A complete inventory was produced of the hospital archive material, indicating the basic content and location of any particular record. Also the Museum and Archives Collection archival descriptions were completed and the material was simultaneously arranged. Archival descriptions and the arrangement process still remains to be completed for the PRHC Fonds, Women’s Auxiliary Fonds and the School of Nursing Alumnae Fonds. In summary, the organization of the hospital records allows for greater accessibility of material for research purposes. 4 Acknowledgements I would like to thank everyone that helped me in the process of working on my research project. First and foremost to Mary Charles at the Peterborough Museum and Archives who put up with my constant questioning and confusion throughout the entire experience. Thank you for answering my questions patiently and constantly; it has been a pleasure working with you and I have learned so much about archiving with your help. In addition, it has been a pleasure to work with everyone at the Peterborough Museum and Archives – namely Kim, Cindy, Susan – with whom great conversations were had over lunch. Second, I would like to say thank you to Sharon Beaucage-Johnson, my course instructor. Thank you for the constant encouragement and motivation talks on Monday mornings; I do not think I would have been able to stay sane doing this project without you. A thank you as well to Marjorie McDonald from the Trent Community-Based Education Program for all your help throughout this past year. 5 Key Research Terms Accession – 1. The act of transferring legal and physical control of records and papers to the archives or records centre. 2. The materials which have been transferred to the archives Archival description – An overall report on the content and history of the records in a collection/fonds. Arrangement – The act and result of physically organizing records in accordance with archival principles. This process includes sorting, packing in file folders and boxes, labelling and shelving. Catalogue/Inventory – To organize information about records according to a specific classification system such as subject, author, date or place. Fonds – Records or papers of a particular individual, institution or organization, ledgers, maps etc. Records – Recorded information, regardless of physical format or characteristics; ie notebook, looseleaf, photographs, etc. Series – Records or groups of records arranged in accordance with a particular filing system or maintained as a unit because of their relationship to one another. Ex: Minutes of meetings from the Board of Directors at Civic Hospital. Sous-fond – Related material within a record group, usually composed of the records of a sub- administrative unit. 6 Introduction In 1885, Moira Hall was established as the first private Protestant Hospital in Peterborough, Ontario for the citizens of the county and surrounding areas (1). Due to the limited space and the high demand for hospital bed availability, Nicholls Hospital was built to replace Moira Hall five years later in 1885 by the trust fund of Charlotte Jane Nicholls (1) at which time Moira Hall ceased to exist as a hospital. Mrs. Nicholls was the wife of a successful merchant in Peterborough; she donated part of her fortune to the construction of the public hospital institution in memory of her late husband (1). This privately-financed hospital existed until 1944 when the private trust fund could no longer support Nicholls Hospital and the hospital was forced to go to the city for financial support . At this point, Nicholls Hospital was superseded by the Peterborough Civic Hospital (PCH), a private hospital no longer and was rebuilt in 1950 to provide more bed space (2). The Catholic Hospital in Peterborough – the St. Joseph’s Health Centre – was built in 1890 that provided health care to all individuals. Over the years, St. Joseph’s and Nicholls or PCH have been corroborative in their health care provisions to the public, such as the transfer of the paediatric unit from St. Joseph’s to Civic Hospital and the development of the cooperative emergency department (3). Due to increased population growth within Peterborough and surrounding area, negotiations were undertaken between PCH and St. Joseph’s to merge the two institutions to enable the building of a new hospital – Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC). PRHC was built in the late 1990s and opened officially in 2008 (4). The Peterborough Civic Hospital and the St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital were subsequently closed. At present day, the PRHC exists as the primary health center for the Peterborough and surrounding areas. Since the opening of the first hospital, administrative records have been produced and subsequently filed. When board meetings, executive and administrative meetings or committee meetings occur, records are made of the proceedings. The records included information such as what was discussed, what decisions were made and copies of reports that were presented. The administrative information was maintained by the organization over the years. Along with this material, material of personal value – tokens and memorabilia of hospital events or 7 organizations – have been collected by individuals. Over time, the hospital records have accumulated and been collected into an archive currently in the process of being acquired by the Peterborough Museum and Archives which is located on Hunter Street in Peterborough, Ontario. A relatively small public organization, the Peterborough Museum and Archives (PMA) collects memories within the community. The objective of the PMA is to preserve, present and make accessible the heritage and culture of Peterborough and surrounding area for the education and enjoyment of both residents and visitors (5). With the assistance of the PMA, I have worked on the Peterborough Hospital Archives research project with the objective of determining the contents of the hospital archive and developing archival descriptions for the hospital records recently acquired. Previously, the PRHC Archive had been organized at the Peterborough Hospital Museum and Archives, located within the hospital, by a committee of volunteer archivists. This committee acquired all material donated and then organized the records according to accession number, as any archival institution would acquire and document records. However, the concept of archival appraisal – the evaluation of relevancy to the hospital history of all donated material – was not prevalent in the accessioning of the hospital material. This has resulted in the accumulation