Back in October 2020, we published a notice of a large new accession that the Archives acquired from the basement of Carney Hospital in Boston, formerly owned and operated by the Daughters.
We are happy to announce that this collection has been processed and is now open to researchers!
This collection fills in numerous gaps in the Carney collection where evolving communities in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston sought care, particularly as the composition of the neighborhood transitioned from immigrants primarily of European descent to new waves of arrivals from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.
Of note in the collection are medical manuals from the turn of the century that provided doctors and nurses with instructions on treating different ailments, as well as a hand-written letter from former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy from 1967. In this letter, she thanks Sister Helen Kelly, the hospital administrator at the time, for her support in founding the Kennedy Presidential Library in the Dorchester neighborhood, an unpopular position at the time among some Dorchester residents due to effects due to the influx of tourists and increase in noise from expanded train yards.
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