Call Number:

Ms. Coll. 635

Repository:

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

Extent:

25 boxes

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Paul Lowinger papers, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

1951-1986 (inclusive)

Creator:

Lowinger, Paul

Form:

Writings (documents), Correspondence, and Manuscripts, American -- 20th century

Abstract:

Paul Lowinger was a psychiatrist and founder of the Institute of Social Medicine and Community Health. His papers comprise 25 boxes of material including correspondence; writings; papers relating to organizations with which Lowinger was professionally affiliated; printed materials from other organizations; health legislation; legal records; and materials published by others in magazines, newspapers, professional journals, and independently. The collection spans a considerable portion of Lowinger's life, but the material is primarily concentrated in the late 1960s and early 1970s and is largely concerned with Lowinger's work as a psychiatrist and activist, with significant portions devoted to his work with the Vietnam peace movement, the civil rights movement, prison reform, and the American Psychiatric Association.

Paul Lowinger was born in Chicago in 1923. After serving in World War II, Lowinger resumed his education, earning his M.D. from the State University of Iowa in 1949. After working for the U.S. Public Health Service for a short period of time, he moved to the Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, where he worked in the Department of Psychiatry and at the Lafayette Clinic. He became a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in 1956.

In the 1960s, Lowinger became involved in a variety of liberal movements, and this period of his life comprises the bulk of the collection. As a doctor and an activist, Lowinger focused his activities on medical issues, but within medicine his work was quite diverse. One of his notable affiliations was with the American Psychiatric Association (APA), and especially the Radical Caucus of the APA.

The Radical Caucus was a group of left-wing psychiatrists who were members of the APA and sought to apply a new social consciousness to the psychiatric profession. They were interested in patients' rights and social justice, and they charged that professional psychiatry, as it was, served to stabilize society by supporting the ruling classes. Their thinking was that because psychiatrists and especially those working in institutions such as schools, hospitals, and prisons focused on making daily life an easier and more pleasant experience for their patients, the psychiatrists were essentially supporting the systems that made up daily life. But if it turned out that it was society, and not these patients, that were disturbed, then seeking to change them to fit society made the psychiatrists, depending on the case, racist, sexist, violent, regressive, and oppressive.

The Radical Caucus operated primarily within the APA, and spent much of its energy attempting to promote its program within that body. Most of its activities were centered around the APA's annual meetings, where it would meet over a few sessions to discuss psychiatric issues of interest and to protest various APA actions. Radical Caucus members would distribute pamphlets to the rest of the convention, and on occasions the group staged a "takeover" of a session. They also wrote letters and submitted them to publications, especially the APA's newspaper, Psychiatric News. Correspondence suggests that Psychiatric News was welcoming of these articles, and apparently the APA largely viewed the Radical Caucus as a small and harmless organization, in contrast to the American Medical Association's more unfriendly response to similar organizations.

Lowinger's concern for the psychiatric profession led him to other activities as well. He attended the Fifth World Conference of Psychiatry in Mexico City in 1971 as a representative of the Radical Caucus, and the collection includes manuscripts of two articles he wrote, titled Radical Psychiatry and Radicals in Psychiatry.

Lowinger was also involved in the civil rights movement from a medical perspective. He was a member of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), and a member and national chairman of the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR). As a member of MCHR he participated in the Selma to Montgomery March, and he was also present for many marches in Washington, D.C. in the 1960s and early 1970s. In addition to the civil rights and anti-war issues that spawned these marches, Lowinger was also interested in public health during the marches, and the collection includes information about the medics and clinics that served these events. Most papers pertaining to MCHR are part of a separate collection of MCHR papers, but those papers that were written by or addressed to Lowinger are part of this collection. There is also a file on PSR, which was involved in many of the same issues.

In the early 1970s Lowinger became interested in prison reform, and in 1974 he moved to San Francisco and began teaching at the University of California. Both in Detroit and San Francisco he worked on prisons, and the collection includes several court cases that he was either a party to or simply took an interest in. Files pertaining to prisons and the APA, as well as a few others, continue into the 1980s, but starting in the mid-1970s the collection becomes more sketchy. There is no material pertaining to his later career and retirement, which occurred in 1992.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lowinger, Paul. "Bio." Web Site of Paul Lowinger. 30 Jan. 2007 http://www.lowingerpaul.com/bio.html.

The Paul Lowinger Papers came to the University of Pennsylvania from Walter J. Lear's Institute of Social Medicine and Community Health. The collection comprises 25 boxes of material including correspondence; writings; papers relating to organizations Lowinger was professionally affiliated with; printed materials from other organizations; health legislation; legal records; and materials published by others in magazines, newspapers, professional journals, and independently. The collection spans a considerable portion of Lowinger's life, but the material is primarily concentrated in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The collection is largely concerned with Lowinger's work as a psychiatrist and activist, with significant portions devoted to his work with the Vietnam peace movement, the civil rights movement, prison reform, and the American Psychiatric Association.

The correspondence series contains Lowinger's letters and is divided into two sub-series, "General" and "Publishing." The "General" sub-series contains correspondence with a variety of friends and acquaintances, mostly other members of the health profession. They mostly are concerned with issues of mental health and health activism. The "Publishing" sub-series contains letters that Lowinger exchanged with editors and publishers concerning his work, as well as drafts in various stages of revision.

The "Professional Affiliations" series reveals Lowinger's awareness of his role as a psychiatrist and the role of psychiatry in the world. The series contains all printed materials, letters, articles, and notes relating to organizations with which Lowinger was closely involved. An important exception is the Medical Committee For Human Rights (MCHR), which forms a separate collection within the Institute of Social Medicine and Community Health Archive at the University of Pennsylvania. Even without the MCHR papers, this series captures Lowinger's concern for racial equality and social justice, as well as his work questioning the for-profit culture of mainstream medicine. The bulk of the series relates to Lowinger's work with the Radical Caucus of the American Psychiatric Association and with Physicians for Social Responsibility.

The "Writings" series also illustrates Lowinger's social awareness as a psychiatrist. The series contains notes, drafts, and final versions of several of Lowinger's publications relating to the role that psychiatrists play in healing or further damaging individuals under their care. Lowinger was also a prolific writer of letters to the editor, commenting on issues ranging from medicine in Nazi Germany to medical care during civil rights and peace marches.

The "Organizational Printed Materials" series contains papers of organizations in which Lowinger was not personally involved, but that worked in areas of concern to him. These range from other professional associations, such as the American Medical Association, to activist groups such as the Physicians Forum and the Radical Student Union, as well as government agencies in New York and Detroit. The series is primarily composed of mailings, newsletters, and other publications.

The "Health Legislation and Policy" series, however, provides a separate series for some government actions. This series contains copies of bills introduced into the U.S. Congress and state legislative bodies, as well as excerpts from the records of these bodies.

The "Court Cases" series contains legal papers from several notable court cases that Lowinger was involved with or found interesting. The majority of them involve prison reform and the rights of prisoners and one, Kaimowitz vs. Department of Health, was an important case in which Lowinger and MCHR prevented the state of Michigan from carrying out experimental brain surgery on prisoners.

The "Writings by Others" series contains a variety of printed materials collected by Lowinger that are significant in their own right and not because of the organization that published them. This series is divided into several subseries, including articles and talks by individuals, magazines, professional journals, and newspapers (both entire issues and single articles).

Finally there is a "Miscellaneous series," which includes unidentifiable printed materials and also a collection of notes that Lowinger kept for himself.