Call Number:

Ms. Coll. 1124

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Extent:

5 linear feet ((11 boxes))

Language:

English

Date:

1954-2006 (inclusive) and 1985-2005 (bulk)

Form:

Typescripts, Administrative records, Writings (documents), Speeches, Photographs, Correspondence, and Clippings (information artifacts)

Abstract:

Terence E. Carroll (1925-2009) was a public health advocate active in Detroit and Washington, D.C. He worked for the Michigan Credit Union League, the League Life Insurance Company, the National Institute on Rehabilitation and Health Services, the Comprehensive Health Planning Council of Southeastern Michigan, Public Health Information Services, and the National Association for Public Health Policy. The collection consists of personal materials, personal and professional correspondence, material on affiliated public health organizations, writings and speeches by Carroll and others, and photographs of Carroll's professional life.

Terence E. Carroll (1925-2009) was a public health advocate active in Detroit and Washington, D.C. He was born outside of Detroit in Berkley, Michigan, the youngest of six children of Philip Carroll and Effie Grubb Carroll. His father, a rubber worker in the automobile industry, was a founding member of the Michigan Communist party. His mother was politically active and was a supporter of trade unions and socialism. The younger Carroll gained from both his parents a deep concern for fighting racism and injustices and a life-long interest in his Irish heritage.

After graduating from Berkley High School in 1943, Carroll enlisted in the Army Air Corps and was sent to Kansas to study engineering. Preferring active duty, Carroll was then trained as a tail gunner on the B-25 and served in the Philippines. Carroll was honorably discharged from the military in 1946 at the rank of corporal. He attended college on the GI Bill, first at Central Michigan College and then at Wayne State University in Detroit, where he graduated with a B.A. in history in 1949. He was married the same year to Selma E. Wineberg and they had three children. Carroll received an M.A. in history from Columbia University in 1950 where he wrote a thesis on "A History of Jehova's Witnesses."

Following graduate study, Carroll was denied certification to teach by the Michigan State Board of Education because of suspicions that he was a communist. Instead, Carroll took a position as curator of industrial history at the Detroit Historical Museum, where he first became interested in the history of public health. In 1953, Carroll took a job in an automobile plant and joined the United Auto Workers union. He became assistant managing director of the Michigan Credit Union League and treasurer of the Ferndale Cooperative, the nation's largest consumer coop in 1955. When the credit union acquired the League Life Insurance Company, Carroll became executive vice president and chief operating officer of that company.

In 1960, Carroll and his family moved to the Washington, D.C. area and he became director of the National Institute on Rehabilitation and Health Services (NIRHS). There he founded and edited the Institute's journal Rehabilitation & Health and served as president of the District of Columbia Rehabilitation Association and president of the District of Columbia Public Health Association. He was also appointed adjunct professor in the Department of Community Medicine at his alma mater Wayne State University. In 1963, Carroll and his wife Selma obtained a divorce and in 1971, Carroll married Sally Irene Aufrecht.

Also in 1971, Carroll moved back to Detroit where he became executive director of the second largest regional health planning body in the United States, the Comprehensive Health Planning Council of Southeastern Michigan (CHPC-SEM). When that organization was decommissioned in 1987, Carroll founded the non-profit Public Health Information Services (PHIS), operated first in Detroit through 1991 and later in Reston, Virginia. In 1991, Carroll and his wife returned to the Washington, D.C. area and Carroll became the second president of the National Association for Public Health Policy (NAPHP). He retained that position until his death in 2009.

(Sources: Terence Evan Carroll Memorial Webpage at http://terencecarroll.yolasite.com/).

The collection is comprised of five series: I. Personal materials; II. Correspondence; III. Affiliated organizations; IV. Writings and speeches; and V. Photographs.

The first series, "Personal materials," includes documents concerning Carroll's Berkley High School (Berkley, Michigan) 60th reunion of 2003. A small file of letters indicate that Carroll was suspected of communism in the 1950s and was denied a job based on these suspicions. A file of papers documents Carroll's attempts at job seeking over several years and there are also several resumes created over the course of his career. Another file documents Carroll's attempts to dispute a charge for a computer he purchased in 1998. A file of miscellaneous personal material includes eulogies and obituaries of several relatives and friends of Carroll's, copies of his daughter's birth certificate, and a handful of awards and certificates given to Carroll over the course of his career.

The second series, "Correspondence," is arranged alphabetically by correspondent and includes letters both to and from Carroll. Carroll was a prolific letter writer who kept in touch with friends, colleagues, and coworkers over the years and easily made new acquaintances through his professional associations and interests. Carroll frequently wrote his letters on business stationery even when they were not clearly work-related transmissions. He also was in the habit of sharing his own letters with additional recipients, so there are often multiple copies present of a single letter. Those with whom Carroll corresponded the most include historian Jane Pacht Brickman, civil liberties lawyer Erwin Ellmann, former co-worker in the field of public health Carol Singer, and epidemiologist Milton Terris, as well as Carroll's son, lawyer David Carroll. Additional correspondence may be found in other series, especially "Affiliated organizations."

Material from the several public health organizations which Carroll worked for over the years comprises the series "Affiliated organizations." Carroll was executive director of the second largest regional health planning body in the United States, the Comprehensive Health Planning Council of Southeastern Michigan (CHPC-SEM) from 1971 until the agency closed in 1987. Included in this series are files from the end of his tenure at the agency, roughly 1981 to 1987. This material includes general office records from 1981 to 1986, as well as a collective bargaining agreement of 1985, records from several grievances and lawsuits, and files concerning the dissolution of the agency. Some issues of newsletters produced by the agency, Commentary and Monday Comments, are included. In the early 1990s, Carroll sought to create a staff address list of all who had once worked for the agency. Those records are included here as well.

After leaving the CHPC-SEM, Carroll founded the non-profit Public Health Information Services (PHIS), operated first in Detroit through 1991 and later in Reston, Virginia. Files from PHIS include general correspondence, from 1991 to 2003, as well as issues of the organization's newsletter, Public Health Comments, 1989 to 1994. Along with copies of the published newsletter are master copies for certain years and research materials used in creating several of the issues.

In 1991, Carroll became president of the National Association for Public Health Policy (NAPHP), which previously had been directed by Carroll's close friend and colleague Milton Terris. The organization sought "to improve the health of the people of the United States by helping to develop health policy, formulating and initiating legislation to implement such policy, and supporting measures to strengthen the public health services." Materials from this organization include general operating records from 1989 to 2005, as well as council records from 1993 to 1995, and planning records for annual meetings from 1994 to 1997. There are also articles submitted for peer review between 1996 and 2004 for the association's medical periodical, Journal of Public Health Policy. Carroll remained president of the association until his death.

Other records in the "Affiliated organizations" series include a small number from the Continental Association of Funeral and Memorial Societies, materials from the 1996 and 1997 Universal Health Care Action Network (UHCAN) conferences, and those from a conference on Organized Labor, Public Health, and Tobacco Control Policy (2000). Between 1979 and 1985, Carroll was nominated several times for the Schlesinger Achievement Award in Community Health Planning, and these nominating materials will be found here. Finally, there are records from Carroll's 20-year association with Wayne State University in Detroit as adjunct associate professor in the Department of Community Medicine.

The series "Writings and speeches" contains materials by Carroll as well as several of his professional colleagues. Among Carroll's own writings and speeches are published articles, letters to the editor of major newspapers, and typescript and handwritten speeches given by Carroll at numerous conferences, meetings, and special events. Among the writings by others are several draft articles by historian Jane Pacht Brickman and a large typescript by doctor and health care administrator Leslie Falk. Articles and newspaper clippings collected by Carroll may be found in this series too.

The final series "Photographs" contains mostly professional black and white photographs from the 1960s to the 1980s. Several photographs document a 1964 National Labor Conference on Rehabilitation and Workmen's Compensation. Photographs of individuals in the field of public health (especially those associated with CHPC-SEM) include those of Kevin Anderson, Toby Citrin, Hershel Clover, D.A. Deshaw, Edwin A. Doehring, John F. Fennessey, Robert E. Forbes, Juanita Godley, Arlene Howe, Richard Huegli, Ralph Liberato, Calvin Lippitt, James McCormick, Roger Mecum, Januarius Muellen, Glen Peters, Donald Potter, Mel Ravitz, Susan Rouke, Milton Terris, Cleopatra Walker, John B. Waller, Myron Wegman, Shirley Wester, and Delora Yori. There are also several unidentified snapshots in print and negative in this series.