The Victor Heiser Papers are a valuable resource that tell the story of an important public health figure of the 20th century. One of the most interesting and useful parts of the collection are Heiser’s travel diaries and notebooks. Victor Heiser, a medical doctor and public health administrator, traveled the world promoting public health measures and fighting diseases like cholera, smallpox, bubonic plague, and leprosy. These diaries tell the story of his day to day work traveling the globe promoting global health. Heiser’s New York Times obituary notes that he circled the world 17 times on his medical missions.
Victor George Heiser was born in 1873 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Heiser survived the disastrous Johnstown Flood. Sadly his parents died, leaving him an orphan at 16. Heiser would go on to earn his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. From 1915 to 1934 Heiser worked for the Rockefeller Foundation, traveling the world promoting public health initiatives and beginning public health campaigns.
Heiser kept detailed travel diaries that provide a fascinating and detailed look at his travels around the world. A single diary, of which there are about 100, sees Heiser writing from Beijing, Calcutta, Honolulu, London, and Singapore. These diaries not only contain information on Heiser’s public health work, but also provide important personal, social, and political insights into the time in which he was writing.
Several of the diaries are currently being digitized and will be available to view shortly in our digital library. They present interesting challenges for digitization. For example, most of the diaries are very small and tightly bound, probably meant to be carried in your pocket. As a result, digitizing certain parts of these diaries has been tedious, but is well worth the effort as they provide a fascinating insight into public health in the early part of the 20th century.
While a handful of these diaries are now digitized and available to view, having the entire series of about 100 diaries digitized would prove extremely useful and something that may be coming in the future.
