Staff members at the New York Academy of Medicine Library have recently completed cataloging over 10,000 pamphlet titles published in the United States between 1840 and 1960. This work was funded by a two-year grant of $150,000 from the The Charles E. Culpeper Foundation. The cataloging records are available through the internet in the electronic catalog for the Academy Library http://www.nyam.org or telnet library.nyam.org and through the major bibliographic utilities.

The Academy Library has systematically collected materials which document public action to avoid disease and other health threats. It has developed and maintained a comprehensive, multi-language collection of urban public health materials. From its inception the Academy Library recognized the significance and importance of pamphlets. Consequently through donation and purchase the Academy Library has been avid and methodical in acquiring pamphlets including those that document the shaping of modern public health and serve as primary source material for the history of public health and the sanitary movement. The public health pamphlets serve as the historical connection between public health theories and the mass marketing of public health in popular culture.

This pamphlet collection, one of the largest of its type in the world, documents the shaping of modern public health and activities to avoid disease and other health threats. They are evidence for the prevailing medical concepts and social attitudes, the effects of disease and sanitary conditions on society, and changing mores and customs in the United States.