Guide to the Franklin C. McLean Papers 1881-1969


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Table of Contents

• Descriptive Summary
• Information on Use
• Access
• Citation
• Biographical Note
• Scope Note
• Related Resources
• Subject Headings
• INVENTORY
• Series I: Personal
• Series II: Correspondence
• Series III: Peking Union Medical College
• Series IV: Publications
• Series V: Research
• Series VI: Audio-Visual Material

Descriptive Summary

Information on Use

Access

Access to some portions of the collection may be restricted due to physical condition or lack of viewing equipment.

Citation

When quoting material from this collection, the preferred citation is: McLean, Franklin C. Papers, [Box #, Folder #], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library

Biographical Note

Franklin Chambers McLean was born February 29, 1888, in Maroa, Illinois, the son of William T. and Margaret Crocker McLean. The son and grandson of physicians, he received his bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 1907, his M.D. from Rush Medical College in 1910, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 1912 and 1915, respectively. During his years of graduate study, he interned at Cook County Hospital, taught pharmacology at the University of Oregon, and also studied for a time at the universities of Graz and Vienna.

In 1914, McLean joined the staff of the Rockefeller Institute in New York. While there he formed close relationships with Alfred E. Cohn, Donald D. Van Slyke, and Rufus Cole as well as meeting Abraham Flexner and Simon Flexner. All these men were concerned with developments in medical education and research and supported the "full time" plan, in which professors were salaried and worked full time in the medical school instead of supporting themselves in private practice. It was with these ideas in mind that in 1916 McLean was placed in charge of the Peking Union Medical College, which was sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation in an attempt to make medical training available in China comparable to the best in the U.S. and Europe. McLean made two trips to China before joining the Army Medical Corps for service during World War I. He returned in 1919 to supervise the building of the hospital and laboratories which were completed in 1921. Resigning his administrative duties in 1920, McLean remained as chairman and professor of medicine until 1923, when he returned to the U.S. While in China, he met Helen Vincent, also a medical doctor, and they married in 1923.

Upon his return, McLean was invited to direct the new medical school being planned for the University of Chicago. It was to be operated on the full time plan that Abraham Flexner advocated, and was intended mainly to train researchers and to promote scholarly investigations by its faculty. Building on his experience in China and committed to the full time approach of his colleagues, he set about work in Chicago, overseeing the building plans, staffing the new departments and raising funds.

The medical school opened in 1927 with McLean serving as vice-chairman of the faculty and chairman of the Department of Medicine. In 1929 he resigned the department chair in order to assume the title of Director of University Clinics and Assistant to the President in Medical Affairs. When President Robert Hutchins reorganized the graduate departments in 1930, McLean was offered the deanship of a division for the clinical departments, but he insisted that they be included within the Biological Sciences Division, emphasizing their connection to the sciences. The school made auspicious beginnings and the hospitals continued to expand, with McLean playing a key role in the building of Bobs Roberts, Chicago Lying-In, and McElwee-Hicks Hospitals. Financially, however, the school was in trouble because of the depression and a lack of sufficient endowments. The full time system was a heavy burden and although McLean secured several large donations, including $500,000 from Julius Rosenwald, Albert Lasker, and Max Epstein, they did not meet the increasing deficits. The full time plan was not universally popular, either, and McLean was closely associated with it and the frictions it created. His forthright manner made him the focal point of policy disputes, and also led to a number of personal grievances among the faculty members. When George Dick was appointed chairman of the Department of Medicine in 1932, McLean was forced to resign.

fterward, McLean was offered a professorship in the Department of Physiology, and leaving behind all administrative duties, he turned his full attention to research. He made this transition easily and went on to contribute to important advances in the study of electrolyte and mineral metabolism, radiation biology, and the physiology of bone. During World War II he directed the Toxicity laboratory, which conducted experiments for the Army on chemical warfare agents. McLean was made Professor Emeritus in 1953, but continued his work, which included publishing, with Marshall R. Urist, three editions of Bone: An Introduction to the Physiology of Skeletal Tissue in 1955, 1961, and 1968.

McLean also made life-long efforts to aid African-American students who desired medical training. He served as a trustee of the Julius Rosenwald Fund and Fisk University, and was closely associated with Provident Hospital and National Medical Fellowships, Inc. He also trained a number of students, co-published books and articles, and inspired loyal sentiments in many of them.

Franklin C. McLean died on September 10, 1968, at Billings Hospital.

Scope Note

The Franklin C. McLean papers have been divided into six series: I. Personal, II. Correspondence, III. Peking Union Medical College, IV. Publications, V. Research, and VI. Audio-Visual Material. The collection itself spans the period 1881 to 1969 and contains correspondence, reprints, experimental data, photographs, home movies, audio tapes, newspaper clippings, diaries, medals, and other personal mementos.

Series I, Personal, contains an assortment of personal items that ranges from postcards to medals and honors. The material, which has been arranged alphabetically, is largely biographical. A few folders contain newspaper clippings or journal articles about McLean's colleagues, such as Franz Alexander. Personal correspondence is located in the second series, Correspondence. This series is arranged alphabetically by correspondent. It is a mix of personal and professional correspondence and the two categories often overlap. In particular, the extensive correspondence with Alfred E. Cohn reflects this. The series covers the dates 1898-1968 but the letters addressed to particular correspondent tend to cluster around a set of dates. The correspondence does not, therefore, necessarily represent the entirety of McLean's correspondence with an individual.

Series III, Peking Union Medical College, consists of a selection of material produced by and about this institution that McLean helped found, and about the affiliated China Medical Board and the Rockefeller Institute. The reports of the Peking Union Medical College and the China Medical Board found here are not comprehensive, but the typescript account of the two groups by Mary Ferguson provides an overview of their history.

The publications of Franklin C. McLean found in the fourth series include an almost complete set of reprints of his articles. These are supplemented by some of his lectures and public address, found in the two bound volumes, "Collected Papers of Franklin C. McLean." These volumes also include correspondence that complements that of the second series. From the publication of Bone: An Introduction to the Physiology of Skeletal Tissue, there is a collection of correspondence and reviews.

Series V, Research, contains a small amount of research data from McLean's early work as a professor of physiology. The last series, Audio-Visual Material, consists largely of personal photos and home movies although there are some photos of the Peking Union Medical College and related subjects.

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Subject Headings

• Bauer, Goran C. H.
• Cole, Rufus
• Cohn, Alfred E.
• Flexner, Abraham
• McLean, Franklin C.
• McLean, Helen Vincent
• Rosenwald, Julius
• Urist, Marshall R.
• Van Slyke, D. D.
• China Medical Board
• Peking Union Medical College
• Rockefeller Institute
• Rush Medical College
• University of Chicago Clinics
• University of Chicago, Department of Physiology

INVENTORY

Series 1, Personal, contains a variety of including certificates and honors, biographical information concerning Franklin C. McLean and his family, two diaries and family papers. This series also includes some materials about the psychoanalyst, Franz Alexander, whom McLean brought to the University of Chicago medical school as a visiting professor of psychoanalysis in 1930. Other items in this series include personal papers such as McLean's military papers, marriage license, a laboratory identification card, and the records he kept about the diabetes he developed late in life. The series also contains papers concerning McLean's memorial service. The series is arranged alphabetically and covers the dates 1881 to 1969.

Series II, Correspondence, covers the dates 1898 to 1968 and is arranged alphabetically by correspondent. It includes both personal and professional correspondence. Of particular interest is McLean's correspondence with Abraham Flexner, a proponent of the full time plan of medical education that McLean instituted at the University medical school. Related to this is the correspondence with Rufus Cole and Simon Flexner. The extensive correspondence with Alfred E. Cohn also reflects a mutual interest in changing

medical education as well as Cohn's relationship to McLean as an advisor, friend and fellow scholar. The correspondence with university president Ernest DeWitt Burton includes concerns McLean's appointment as director of the medical school. Research interests are also reflected in this series, in particular in the correspondence with Göran C. H. Bauer, a Swedish physician and orthopedic surgeon, and D. Harold Copp, head of the department of physiology as the University of British Columbia. Series II contains a certain amount of correspondence relating to the Peking Union Medical College and McLean's directorship there. This can be found the in correspondence with Houghton, Buttrick, Embree and Greene, among others. Also included in this series is a small amount of the correspondence of Helen Vincent McLean, Franklin McLean's wife, to her family members and others. The correspondence found in the series as a whole varies widely, but often the correspondence with an individual will be concentrated in a particular number of years, and not representative of the long period of correspondence that may have existed with that individual.

Series III, Peking Union Medical College, contains materials relating to the Peking Union Medical College, the China Medical Board and the state of medicine in China. It includes newspaper clippings, conference proceedings, lists of graduates, and reports. The series is arranged alphabetically and covers the dates 1915-1968. Although McLean was part of the Peking Union Medical College only until 1924, the materials are both from that period and later. The typescript, "History of the Peking Union Medical College and China Medical Board," written by Mary Ferguson is grouped with the correspondence that was originally bound with it. Additional correspondence relating to the Peking Union Medical College can be found in Series II, Correspondence.

The fourth series, Publications, covers the dates 1908 to 1968 and is organized by subject. The series contains a nearly comprehensive set of reprints of articles by McLean. These six volumes of reprints are bound in chronological order and each volume contains a table of contents. The reprints are followed by a collection of papers from 1927-1932. These two volumes contain addresses, lectures, reports and memoranda in addition to copies of correspondence with Abraham Flexner and Hans Zinsser. The series also includes four folders of materials relating to Bone: An Introduction to the Physiology of Skeletal Tissue, such as contracts and reviews. Last in the series is a copy of Calculus with Applications, a home study course textbook with the problems completed.

The series, Research, covers the period from 1933 to 1967 and is arranged alphabetically. The bulk of the series consists of three bound volumes of experimental data from research McLean began soon after becoming a professor of physiology. A fourth volume contains experimental data on protein analysis from the same period. The last item in the series contains some correspondence and conference programs and similar materials from a symposium on calcified tissues.

Series VI, Audio-Visual Material, contains a large number of photographs as well as a few home movies and some audio tapes. The photographs are primarily personal and family photographs and many are unidentified. The series begins with the identified photographs of McLean and his immediate family, and these are followed by photographs from trips McLean took to Africa, Greece, and other locations. Of note here is the last set of travel photographs, identified by their dates: 1916-1935. This subset includes photos of the Peking Union Medical College and related subjects, many of which are identified. Following the photographs are eight reels of home movies, which have McLean's son, Franklin Vincent McLean as the subject. The last items in this series are a chronological set of audio cassette tapes that contain the voice of Ann Budy reading the correspondence and diaries of McLean. Budy was a former student of McLean's.