Willard M. Gaylin papers

Collection

Identifier: BRL-053

Request

Scope and Contents

The collection documents the work of Willard Gaylin, including his writing and some activities of The Hastings Center. It includes a scrapbook from his retirement and the 25th anniversary of the Hastings Center; articles and clippings by and about Gaylin; a video interview; a few episodes of Hard Choices, a 6-part PBS series on bioethics which Gaylin narrated; and other materials.

Dates

Creation: 1951 - 2020

Creator

Gaylin, Willard (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Materials are open without restrictions.

Conditions Governing Use

Researchers are solely responsible for determining the copyright status of the materials being used, establishing who the copyright owner is, locating the copyright owner, and obtaining permission for intended use.

Biographical Note

Willard Marvin Gaylin (1925-2022) was a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and bioethics scholar who co-founded The Hastings Center. He received a BA in English from Harvard College (1947), an MD from Western Reserve (now Case Western) University School of Medicine (1951), and a Certificate in Psychoanalytic Education from the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (1956). He was Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia Medical School, Professor of Psychiatry and Law at Columbia Law School, and an adjunct professor at Union Theological Seminary. He was a prolific author, writing or editing over 20 books on psychological themes, emotions, morality, and medical ethics.

Extent

1.5 Cubic Feet (3 boxes)

Extent

3.33 Gigabytes

Language of Materials

English

Metadata Rights Declarations

License: This record is made available under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Creative Commons license.

Additional Description

Arrangement

The collection is arranged chronologically. Undated materials are arranged alphabetically at the end of the collection.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of Jody Heyward, 2026.

Processing Information

The collection was processed in 2026. It was rehoused in acid-free boxes and folders. The arrangement scheme was imposed during processing in the absence of a usable original order. Folder titles in quotation marks were found on the original folders; all other titles were devised by the archivist. The scrapbook was disassembled and individual items were foldered. Audio-visual recordings were transferred from disks to cloud storage and original media was destroyed. Duplicate material and clippings from well-known sources, e.g. The New York Times and Washington Post, were removed from the collection.