Sub-Group I.  Professional Correspondence
           Series 1: Associations & Agencies
           Series 2: Individuals

Sub-Group II.  Professional Activities
           Series 3: Public Appearances
           Series 4:Controversies
           Series 5:Writings
           Series 6: Grant Applications, Reports
           Series 7: Long-term studies

Sub-Group III. Personal Materials
           Series 8: Personal Materials

Sub-Group IV. Schilder Papers
           Series 9: Professional Correspondence; Official Documents
           Series 10: Publication-Related Materials
           Series 11:Personal Materials

Sub Group V. John O. Bender Papers
          Series 12: John O. Bender Papers
 

I.  PROFESSIONAL CORRESPONDENCE

SERIES 1: ASSOCIATIONS AND AGENCIES, 1942-1968.  4 document boxes.  2 cubic feet. Alphabetically arranged by organization, with chronological arrangement within each folder.

This series contains professional correspondence, reports, and memoranda, as well as abstracts of papers connected with many of the agencies and organizations with which Bender was associated on both a voluntary and paid basis.

Materials relate to the American Psychiatric Association (1952-1967), particularly to its Committee on Child Psychiatry (1942-1951); the American Psychopathological Association (1944-1967), including Bender's presidency in 1962, the American Public Health Association (1956-1961), chiefly in connection with the preparation of a publication called "Services for Children with Emotional Disturbances;" the Center for Applied Linguistics (1966); the Committee on Psychiatric Services for Children (Department of Hospitals, N.Y.C.; 1962-1964); the Community Council of Greater New York (1958-1961); the Community Mental Health Board, an offshoot of the Committee on Psychiatric Services for Children (1963-1965); and the Council for Exceptional Children (1959-1961).

There are also extensive materials (dating from 1947-1959) relating to Irvington House, a residential facility at Irvington-on-Hudson for children with rheumatic disorders, on the medical board of which Bender served from 1947-1959, during her teaching tenure at New York University (with which Irvington House is affiliated).  A good deal of material also deals with the League for Emotionally Disturbed Children (1950-1961) and its offshoot, the League School for Seriously Disturbed Children (1956-1966).  Bender became a member of the League's advisory board in 1953.  A letter dated 7/21/52 relates to Elliott Shapiro, the subject of a clipping file in Box 15 who also among the individuals corresponded with (Series 2).  Materials are also, included and relating to the Lifeline Center for Child Development (1964-1966) and the Manfred Sakel Foundation (1959-1968).

Professional correspondence with the New Jersey Neuro-Psychiatric Institute (1953-1958) relates particularly to courses conducted and lectures delivered by Bender during this period.  Correspondence in 1955 refers to a possible position for her there, although this did not materialize.  And there is also correspondence (in 1956) relating to a manuscript by Dr. Helen Yarnell (subject of a folder in Box 15).

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SERIES 2: INDIVIDUALS.  1936-1969.  3 document boxes.  1.5 cubic feet.  Alphabetically arranged.

This correspondence includes letters on projected and completed visits by prominent persons, notifications of staff changes, and recommendations for persons who had worked under Bender.  Among letters of interest are an exchange with, and correspondence about, Ernest Harms.  A separately alphabetized folder (maintained by Bender) contains correspondence wit persons of importance.  These include the following, arranged alphabetically: Percival Bailey, Augusta Bonnare; Hyman Caplan; Mildred Creak (some materials on her are included in Box 23); Madame C. Crespin; Katrina de Hirsch; G. Heuyer; Leo Kanner; John C. Kerridge; Henning Poulsen (her son Peter's director), along with a few written by Peter while he was under Poulsen's direction; Fredric Wertham; and Herman Wortis.

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II.  PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

SERIES 3: PUBLIC APPEARANCES, 1936-1968.   3 document boxes.  1.5  cubic feet.  Arrangement varies.
 

SUB-SERIES 1: SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS, ACCEPTED AND COMPLETED;  AND NOT     ACCEPTED, 1953-1968.

SUB-SERIES 2: GOVERNMENT HEARINGS, CONFERENCES OF NOTE,  PROFESSIONAL MEETINGS IN WHICH BENDER PARTICIPATED, RADIO PROGRAMS, 1936-1968.

In Subseries 1, the speaking engagement which Bender classified as accepted and completed are arranged chronologically.  The speaking engagements which she did not accept are also ordered chronologically but are separated from the rest, are materials relating to a projected lecture tour in Argentina (1964-1966) that did not materialize.

Sub-Series 2 contains records of her testimony at government conferences and hearings.  (However, materials relating to a hearing conducted by Estes Kefauver in 1950 on the effects of comics on children are included in Box 12, "Comics").  Bender testified on the subject of youth and the family in 1955 before the Sub-Committee on Youth and the Family of the Temporary Commission on the Courts; on youth and crime, in the same year, before the Law Enforcement Institute sponsored jointly by Senator Jacob K. Javits and Mark A. McCloskey of the New York State Youth Commission; and on youth and delinquency, also in 1955.  In 1957, she testified about the education of mentally retarded children before the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare of the United States Senate, and in 1959, on special education for the emotionally disturbed before the Committee on Education and Labor of the U.S. House of Representatives.  She submitted written testimony to the Sub-Committee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency of the U.S. Senate in 1960.  In addition, the series includes programs for many conferences in which Bender is listed as a participant between 1936-1968.  Finally, the subseries contains scripts of and correspondence concerning radio programs in which Bender participated between 1936 and 1963, with the bulk of the material falling in the 1940s.

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SERIES 4: CONTROVERSIES, 1915-1962.  1 document box.  .5 cubic foot.  Arranged alphabetically, with interior     chronological arrangement.
 

SUB-SERIES 1: THE FATHER DIVINE CONTROVERSY, 1935-1944
SUB-SERIES 2: THE BENDER-GESTALT CONTROVERSY, 1945-196

Sub-Series 1 relates to an article Bender published in The Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases.  Although the article is not named in any of the related correspondence which dates from 1935, the only article published by Bender in that journal near that time is "Psychiatric Mechanisms in Child Murderers," published in volume 80 of the journal in 1934, so that correspondence in the following year would seem to be on target.  The correspondence is from researchers interested in Bender's findings, and from followers of Father Divine, interested in defending him and his followers from Bender's allegations.  There are also clippings from issues of Divine's magazine, The New Day, ranging from 1940-1944.

Sub-Series 2, the Bender-Gestalt Dispute, records Bender's successful fight against infringement of her copyright for the Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test (popularly known as the Bender-Gestalt Test) which she developed and reported in 1938.  The bulk of the records fall in 1960-1962, when Bender engaged attorneys Hutt and Gerald J. Briskin, entitled, The Clinical Use of the Revised Bender Gestalt Test.  In letters on the subject dated November 9, 1960, Bender gives some of the most salient history on the matter, alluding to difficulties with Hutt that went back to 1945.  Copies of that early correspondence are included in the file.  The case was resolved on June 30, 1962, with the signing of a stipulation that the book would carry statements essentially dictated by Bender's attorneys.

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SERIES 5: WRITINGS, 1928-1966.  2 DOCUMENT BOXES.  1 CUBIC FOOT. ARRANGEMENT VARIES.

The writings series consists of materials related to Bender's published and unpublished writings (sometimes written in collaboration with others) arranged alphabetically, by title.  These materials, when compared with the bibliography she prepared (which is located in Box 15), represent only a small fraction of her total written output.  (They also do not include the voluminous materials, and a good deal of her correspondence relating to them, are organized in boxes 19-22).  In addition to the copies of Bender's writings noted above, series 5 includes her correspondence and reviews concerning her own publications, arranged chronologically, and a folder of correspondence dating from 1958-1961 concerning the founding of the Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry.

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SERIES 6: GRANT APPLICATIONS; REPORTS, 1943-1956.  1 document box..5 cubic feet.  Arranged alphabetically.

Series 6 contains applications, correspondence, and reports connected with various grants made to Bender, and/or to institutions with which she was affiliated, between 1943 and 1956.  The Fieke Foundation paid small amounts to the Children's Psychiatric Fund to cover the salary of a reading tutor at New York University from 1948 to 1951.  The Ford Foundation rejected, in 1956, a proposal submitted by Bender in 1955.  The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded a study of childhood schizophrenia from 1951 through 1952, and corresponded occasionally about the project through 1955.  In 1956, NIH rejected another application for a research grant.  The New York State Psychiatric Institute and Hospital provided some support for research on dementia precox between 1943 and 1948, in connection with the Scottish Rite Committee on Research in Demential Precox.  The correspondence concerning this research includes letters about Dr. Ewart Hines, a young colleague associated with this project who died suddenly in 1947.

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SERIES 7:  LONG-TERM STUDIES, 1929-1960.  3  document boxes.  1.5 cubic feet.   Arrangement varies.
 

SUB SERIES 1: PHIPPS-MARYLAND STUDY, 1929-1956.
SUB-SERIES 2: COMICS, 1941-1960.
SUB-SERIES 3: TELEVISION AND MOVIES, 1940-1955.
SUB-SERIES 4: ART AND THERAPY, 1935-1950.
SUB-SUBSERIES A: ART THERAPY, MUSEUM AND WARD WORK,
           1936-1950.
SUB-SUBSERIES B: MUSIC THERAPY, 1936-1946
SUB-SUBSERIES C: PUPPET SCRAPBOOK, 1935

Sub-Series 2 is a collection of materials that Bender was interested in for many years: comics, and their effect on children.  She presented a paper on this subject in 1941 and thereafter was in touch with, and a paid advisor to, important companies in the comics industries.  She repeatedly advised, sometimes in testimony before governmental bodies and often in print and in live broadcasts, that comics alone could not harm a healthy psyche, and that some of the fantasies they embodied were helpful to children.  (Materials relating to her testimony before a senate committee headed by Estes Kefauver in 1950 are included in the folder for that year).  The influence of comics on children, particularly as it impinged on the study of children and violence, was subject of great interest to Bender, who did not, however, advocate the depiction of violence or perversion.  Bender's correspondence on comics ranges from 1941-1960 and is arranged chronologically; clippings on comics that are distinct from this correspondence range from 1949 to 1954, and are filed separately.
 

Sub-Series 3, on television and the movies, is closely related to Sub-Series 2, since in this case, also, Bender was primarily interested in the effect of depictions of violence on children.  The materials in this Sub-Series include two clippings files, one on delinquency and one on drug use, ranging from 1940 to 1955, and a folder of offprints and reports dating between 1941 and 1960 on the effect of television and movies on young people.

Sub-Series 4 testifies to Bender's strong interest in the use of art as therapy.  From 1936 to 1950, she studied and wrote about the significance of children's graphic art work.  She was connected to many programs and exhibits in difference museums concerning the art work of mentally disturbed children.  A letter from Margaret Mead, dated 2 February 1945, on the letterhead of the Museum of Natural History, is included in the file.  Materials on the use of music as therapy, dating from 1935 through 1946, are also included in this series.  Perhaps most prominently, Bender promoted the use of puppet shows in the children's ward at Bellevue in the 30's, employing particularly an emigre named Adolph Woltmann.  Bender maintained a (now dismantled) scrapbook of clippings, photographs, and letters about puppets.  Letters contained in this file, in Box 15, and in Box 23, attest to the fact that Woltmann became a close friend.  In a touching holograph letter to Bender dated 21 December 1935, Woltmann, who apparently had performed in fairs in Europe, tells Bender that she "detected and discovered my immortal soul."  Letters he sent her in the 40's from Europe, after visiting her deceased husband's family as her agent, attest to the lasting bond between the two.

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SERIES 8:  PERSONAL MATERIALS, 1926-1967.  3 document boxes.  1.5 cubic feet.  Arrangement varies.

Bender's personal materials vary considerably, and leave many gaps.

The materials include several undated bibliographies of her writings, several cvs, an undergraduate essay by her son, Peter, concerning his background (and throwing light on his mother), and a revealing autobiographical sketch, dated 1964, and marked in pencil "not to be published in my life time without my permission."

Also extant are official documents including medical licenses dating back to the forties, memos and correspondence relating to Bender's changing positions in the fifties, and one or two certificates related to her job status in the late 60's. There is a photograph of her second husband, Henry Parkes, barely mentioned in the collection, but identified in her obituary as a former professor of history at New York University.

Bender retained some family letters, including correspondence with her mother dating from the 60's when Mrs. Bender was a resident in the Longwood Manor Sanitorium; with her brothers John and Karl in the 50's and 60's; with her children, at various dates; and with various school officials concerning her children's schooling.  This correspondence indicates that, like her, all of Bender's children were dyslexic.  She also retained an early effort at creativity by Peter as well as an advanced paper, "A New Statistical Method for Predicting Long Term Tropospherif Loss," by her son Michael.  Finally, she retained a few cards celebrating her re-marriage.  The materials relating to each of these individuals of events are arranged separately, with the internal chronological arrangement when appropriate.

Three colleagues, Joseph Montague, Merrill Moore, and Helen Yarnell, whose deaths apparently had great importance to Bender are the subject of a separate folder containing materials ranging from 1940 to 1961.

Finally, Bender collected clippings relating to some of her colleagues, particularly, in 1966 and 1967, to Elliott Shapiro, the embattled principal of a public school in Harlem (see Series 2 for related correspondence).

Apparently Bender did not systematically collect and hold materials concerning her own honors and awards, but information on a few, along with some clippings dating between 1949 and 1969, are intact and filed chronologically.

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IV.  SCHILDER PAPERS

SERIES 9: NOTEBOOKS, PROFESSIONAL CORRESPONDENCE; PROFESSIONAL  RECORDS; CASE HISTORIES, CLIPPINGS; 1886-1940.  2  document boxes.  1 cubic foot.  Arranged chronologically within categories.

Series 9 consists of the professional correspondence and official documents of Paul Schilder (1886-1940), Bender's first husband.  Much of this is early material, predating her acquaintance with Schilder which commenced, according to her autobiography, in 1930.  There are three handwritten notebooks in German, the first of which is dated 1926, and papers contained in these notebooks have been removed, unfolded, and placed in folders.  Typed and handwritten correspondence and memos in both German and English, dating from 1928 through 1940 and relating to various professional positions, are grouped chronologically.  Letters of a professional nature, acknowledging referrals, for example, are grouped chronologically and range from 1932 to 1941, while a separate folder contains letters in French, German and Spanish, spanning the years 1926 through 1940; letters to private patients over the years 1933 to 1940, also arranged chronologically, are grouped together.  Case histories of some patients, some of which are dated, are arranged in the order the last name or initial of the patient.

Schilder, and then Bender, retained clipping concerning two controversies of the 30s, Schilder's own clashed with Psychoanalytic Society (1933-1944), and the public clashes that raged between Dr. M.S. Gregory, chief of the psychiatric hospital at Bellevue, and Dr. S.S. Goldwater, Commissioner of Hospitals, in 1934 and 1935.

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SERIES 10: PUBLICATIONS-RELATED MATERIALS, 1913-1919.  4 document boxes, 2 cubic feet.  Arrangement varies.
 

SUB-SERIES 1: REVIEWS, CORRESPONDENCE, NOTES, 1924-1955
SUB-SERIES 2: PUBLISHED AND UNPUBLISHED WORKS, 1913-1938

The series also contains the fraction of Schilder's published and unpublished paper retained by Bender, arranged by title.  These are in both handwritten and typed form and in both English and German.  Prominent among them are the manuscripts of his Goals and Desires of Man and his Psychoanalytic Theory of Psychoses.  There are also a few unidentified pages.

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SERIES 11: PERSONAL MATERIALS, 1886-1962.   1 document box, 1 oversized.   .75 cubic foot.  Sorted and arranged chronologically.
 

Series 11 contains such materials as primarily personal photographs, most identified and many dated, ranging from 1912-1948; personal effects, including Schilder's birth certificate and death certificate, ranging from 1886-1940.  There is also both general correspondence and a professional paper connected to Schilder's death (December 1940).  The paper, "The Death of the Leader in Group Psychotherapy," by Schilder's colleague, Pauline Rosenthal, M.D., discusses the effects of Schilder's death on his group-therapy patients.  The series also contains a folder of personal letters concerning and/or from the Schilder family, including some to Lauretta Bender from Adolf Woltmann, the puppeteer (Box 14), ranging from 1937-1955.  A folder of letters and cables relating to Schilder's death dates mainly from December 1940 through January 1941, but extends till November 1941.  Some of the clippings concerning Schilder's death mention the feud between Bender and his first wife and relate the facts concerning his death and funeral.  A folder of financial documents ranging from  1929-1940 supply information on his divorce not available elsewhere in the collection.  A folder of materials relating to Schilder's life and several bibliographies of his writings are also contained in this series.  Oversize documents are stored in box 23, an oversized box.

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V.  JOHN O. BENDER PAPERS

SERIES 12: JOHN O. BENDER PAPERS.  1 document box.  .5   cubic foot.

This series contains the writings of Lauretta Bender's father, John O. Bender.

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