Norman Jolliffe papers, 1892-1963, bulk 1935-1961
Collection context
Summary
- Creator:
- Jolliffe, Norman
- Abstract:
- Diaries, reprints of scientific articles, photographs, genealogical material, certificates, and awards. The bulk of the papers consists of the diaries physician and public health official Norman Jolliffe kept intermittently from 1935 to a few months before his death.
- Extent:
- 1.66 cubic feet 4 boxes 1 folder
- Language:
- English
- Preferred citation:
-
Smith Ely Jelliffe City Hospital cases. M-0105. Archives and Special Collections, Columbia University Health Sciences Library.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The Jolliffe papers include diaries, reprints of scientific articles, photographs, genealogical material, certificates, and awards. The bulk is comprised of the diaries Jolliffe kept intermittently from 1935 to a few months before his death. While primarily a record of his research interests and his activities first at Bellevue and later at the New York City Department of Health, the diaries cover a wide range of personal and professional matters. Jolliffe comments on medical lectures and professional meetings; movies and plays; his family; politics; his own health (especially his diabetes and, later in life, his deteriorating eyesight); the sales of his popular diet book; travels; the activities of the “Anti-Coronary Club;” his finances; and his work with foreign governments as an expert on nutrition.
Of particular interest is his record of a European trip made in 1937 to study alcoholism research for the Rockefeller Foundation. Jolliffe consulted numerous experts in the British Isles and Scandinavia and also visited Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, Zurich, Paris and Amsterdam. He also kept a diary during two visits to Newfoundland in 1944 and 1948 while conducting a survey of nutritional needs for its government.
Other items of interest are photographs and newspaper clippings documenting Jolliffe’s work for the Cuban government in 1955-56 (Box 2:7); and letters written by him and his wife during a professional trip and vacation to East Asia (primarily Taiwan), India and Europe in 1954-55 (Box 2:8).
In addition, there are three boxes of slides. One includes 53 glass slides, mostly of charts and graphs, that appear to be from one of Jolliffe’s Newfoundland surveys. The two other boxes contain 2” x 2” film slides. One is a set of images of nutritional diseases published by the Clay-Adams Co. of New York for which Jolliffe served as consultant. The other holds about 45 images of dining facilities including industrial plant cafeterias, diners and restaurants and domestic kitchens. Several are dated 1942.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Norman Jolliffe, physician and public health official, was born August 18, 1901 in Knob Fork, West Virginia. He obtained his B.S. from the University of West Virginia in 1923 and received his medical degree from New York University in
After an internship and residency in the Third (NYU) Medical Division of Bellevue Hospital, Jolliffe joined the faculty of the New York University School of Medicine. He also served as Chief of Medical Service of Bellevue’s Psychiatric Division from 1932 to Jolliffe taught at the Columbia University School of Public Health from 1945 until his death and rose to become an Associate Professor of Nutrition. He established the first Nutrition Clinic of the New York City Department of Health in 1945 and was Director of the department’s Bureau of Nutrition from 1949 to 1961.
Jolliffe was among a number of physicians whose research into alcoholism in the 1930s helped shift the American perception of this condition from a “temperance” to a “disease” model. His work on obesity, appetite and the role of cholesterol in heart disease in the 1940s and ‘50s was also highly important and foreshadowed the widespread American concern with weight loss that greatly intensified in the last quarter of the 20th century.
While head of the Bureau of Nutrition, Jolliffe established the “Anti-Coronary Club,” a group of businessmen in their 40s and 50s who were put on a diet of cold cereal, margarine, chicken and fish in an attempt to reduce their cholesterol. While the results and meaning of this experiment are still disputed, it marked a significant step in identifying a high cholesterol diet as a cause of heart disease.
Besides over a hundred scientific articles, Jolliffe was author of Reduce and Stay Reduced (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1952; 2nd ed., 1957), a popular guide to dieting. He was also editor of Clinical Nutrition (1950), published for the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council.
Jolliffe was first married to Edna Suddaby Jolliffe. They had one child before her sudden death in 1938. The next year Jolliffe married Lillian Lebowitz. He died August 1, 1961 survived by his wife and son.
- Acquisition information:
- Unknown; the papers were held by Archives Special Collections at least since 1995 and probably long before that (acc. #2004.01.08).
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: a Content Standard
Indexed terms
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Because the papers include Confidential Health Information (CHI) as defined by Columbia University policies governing data security and privacy, access is allowed only under the terms of Archives and Special Collections’ Access Policy to Records Containing Confidential Health Information.
- Terms of access:
-
Because the papers include Confidential Health Information (CHI) as defined by Columbia University policies governing data security and privacy, access is allowed only under the terms of Archives and Special Collections’ Access Policy to Records Containing Confidential Health Information.
- Preferred citation:
-
Smith Ely Jelliffe City Hospital cases. M-0105. Archives and Special Collections, Columbia University Health Sciences Library.
- Location of this collection:
- Contact:
- 212-305-2862