Sexual history and sexology books.

[Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], 1554-1954.

Multiple languages

Various western languages.

1 online resource (1,580 monographs).

The New York Academy of Medicine was established in 1847 as an independent organization interested in regulating and improving the profession of medicine in New York City and in promoting the health of the public. The Academy is currently dedicated to ensuring everyone has the opportunity to live a healthy life. Through original research, policy and program initiatives, the Academy provides the evidence base to address the structural and cultural barriers to good health and drive progress toward health equity. The library collections have been an integral part of the Academy since the beginning. The first gift to the library, a set of Martin Payne's Commentaries, was presented at the second meeting of the organization on January 13, 1847. Initially conceived of as a collection of contemporary materials for the use of the Fellows, the collection expanded well beyond that because of the interest of many of the early Fellows in the history of medicine. A vote to make the library accessible to the public in 1878 opened the door to a wider range of exchanges, gifts and purchases. The library was then, and continues to be, the only medical library in the city of New York open to anyone who wishes to use its collections. The library contains over 550,000 volumes (including a rare book collection of approximately 32,000 volumes), about 275,000 portraits and illustrations, approximately 400,000 pamphlets, and over 1,600 linear feet of manuscripts and archives. Together, these materials are an extraordinary resource, providing insights into the formative texts and medical thinking in which contemporary practice is rooted, and demonstrate our attempts to understand our bodies, minds, and health across time and culture. Western medical texts from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries are a particular area of strength of the rare book collection, with strong holdings in the 19th and 20th centuries that form the major part of what we consider to be the historical part of the library's holdings. The Academy Library traditionally collected in all areas of medicine and its allied fields, and consequently accumulated extensive holdings in many subjects, including women's medicine, midwifery, gynecology and obstetrics, and a wide range of materials about sex and sexuality. Advice books for parents and children are an especially strong part of the collection, including sexual advice guides, some by physicians, for both men and women; marriage manuals; birth control books; books advising parents on how to share information about sex with their children, many of them written by women; and cautionary works about the dangers of self-gratification. Like a number other libraries, the Academy restricted the use of some of these materials for decades, storing books in a locked section of the stacks. A set of catalog descriptions, with prescriptive comments about each item, including the intended audience and notes about how accurate or useful the content appeared to be, was located near the reference desk as a guide for library staff to use when these items were requested. Although restrictions on library use were removed long ago, the remnants of that system remain visible in subtle ways. The main class mark for books about sexuality is S102, but subclassifications distinguish books available only to physicians (S102A) from those that were locked but available to the general public (S102B) and those that were openly shelved and available to anyone for consultation (S102C). In Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century, more than 1,500 books covering topics in sex, sexuality, and gender, some dating from the 16th century, from the Academy Library collection are presented, bridging the history of medicine, the humanities, and the arts. This collection of rare and unique materials provides context to the study of sex and sexuality in human history, offering a wide variety of scientific and literary texts in English, German, French, Old High German, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Russian, Swedish, Danish, Old English, and Yiddish.

Date range: 1554-1954.
Source institution: New York Academy of Medicine.

Access limited to authorized

Archives of Sexuality and Gender: Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century.

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