Established in 2012, the Library's Center for the History of Medicine and Public Health brings together the public and professional programs of the library and aims to build bridges among an interdisciplinary community of scholars, educators, clinicians, curatorial and conservation professionals, and the general public.
Each year, the Center hosts a wide-ranging roster of public programming, integrating health and medicine with history, the humanities, and the arts. The Center’s lectures, workshops, seminars, and other events deliver unique and enriching experiences to thousands of New Yorkers every year. Up-to-date event listings can be found on NYAM's events page.
You can also view past Library events & programs on our YouTube channel.
Bibliography Week Lecture: Aristotle's Masterpiece: Reflecting on the Material Text
Heberden Society: Infant Mortality, Race, and the American Roots of a Health Inequality
Previous Events
Then & Now: The Opportunities And Challenges Of Healthy Aging In New York City
Then & Now: The Past and Future of Medical Libraries
Impact of the SCOTUS Reversal of Roe v.Wade
Then & Now: Drug Policy & Harm Reduction Services
Then & Now: Maternal Health, Maternal Mortality, and the Intersection with Race
Voices in the Band: A Doctor, Her Patients, and How the Outlook on AIDS Care Changed from Doomed to Hopeful
Bibliography Week Lecture: “The Bordeaux Academy of Sciences and the Great Race Contest of 1741”
The Lilianna Sauter Lecture: Managing the Modern "Infodemic"
The Iago Galdston Lecture: Inequalities Unmasked: What Pandemics Reveal About Race and U.S. Society
Building a Collection: Personal Narratives from the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic
Health Inequities and the Making of Race: A Short History
Bibliography Week Lecture: Manuscript Cookbooks and Their Audience
The Doctors Blackwell
Black Maternal Health: Historical and Reproductive Justice Reckonings
Typhoid Fever and the Origins of Epidemiology in Victorian Britain
Facing the Future: Predicting and Preparing for Disease Outbreaks
The Center’s public programming explores the interaction and influence of the arts, humanities, and history on questions of health and medicine through a diverse calendar of events. These events include themed explorations of aspects of our collections, lectures in the history of medicine and public health, workshops and reading groups.
View our COVID-19 Safety Protocols for attending NYAM public events.