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Palmer's Davenport Campus Library Special Services Division

D.D. Portrait  

The Palmer's Davenport Campus Library Special Services is comprised of two units, the Special Collections and Palmer's College Archives.  The Special Collections, with more than 10,000 books and 2,500 journal volumes, is considered the most comprehensive chiropractic historical resource in the world.  Chiropractic, osteopathy, homeopathy, and other non-drug and non-surgical health sciences materials are collected and are available for in-house use.

The Special Collections also contains 1,000 cubic feet of manuscripts, photos and other audio-visual materials.  The highlights of the Special Collections include manuscripts and papers collections of:

  • D.D. Palmer (1845-1913), the Founder of Chiropractic and what is now called Palmer College of Chiropractic; 
  • B.J. Palmer (1882-1961), son of D.D. and President of the Palmer School of Chiropractic from 1906-1961; 
  • David D. Palmer (1906-1978), son of B.J. and Mabel Heath Palmer, President of Palmer College of Chiropractic from 1961-1978; 
  • Kenneth Cronk (1907-1980), Galen Price (1912-2000), and Ronald Frogley (1924-2005), long-time influential Palmer faculty members; 
  • Lyndon Lee (1887-1983), a chiropractic pioneer from New York;
  • Gustave Dubbs, (Lincoln Chiropractic College, 1949) and the National Director of Comprehensive Health Planning;
  • Ted Shrader (1919-), (Ratledge College, 1940), Chair of the ACA's Council on Technic for fourteen years;
  • The Lensgraf family, an early and extensive family of chiropractors;
  • Russell Gibbons (1931-)  and Walter Wardwell (1918-2005), prominent and widely published chiropractic historians.

B.J. Portrait  

Special Services also manages the Palmer's College Archives.  These records, the memory unit of the College, are arranged by campus and by department.

ORAL HISTORIES : Click on 'Oral Histories' for a list of oral histories of chiropractors, or of people closely connected with chiropractic that have been identified by the Special Services division of Palmer's Davenport Campus Library. Most of the oral histories are available through Special Services. The remainder are available through other sources. 

The grid names the narrator, the interviewer, the date of the interview, where and when the narrator graduated, and whether or not the tapes have been transcribed.  For help in accessing the interviews please contact the Special Services division eithr by telephone at (563) 884-5893 or by e-mail at Wiese_G@palmer.edu.

Mabel Portrait  

PALMER's GREEN BOOKS: From 1906 to 1963 the Palmer School of Chiropractic published a set of textbooks emphasizing chiropractic technique and philosophy. The 39 volumes have become highly collectible, with those written by B.J. Palmer commanding the highest value. For a complete bibliography of the Palmer Green Books click on the above link.

Dave Portrait  

Photo Reproduction Service: The Palmer's Special Services provides digital images and photographic reproductions from our collection for a fee. To obtain information on this service, contact the Special Services Librarian at (563) 884-5894 or wiese_g@palmer.edu. View a sample of the available photos. 

Palmer College is a member of the Upper Mississippi Valley Digital Image Archive Project.  Additional Palmer owned photos may be found there at www.umvphotoarchive.org.

There are several policies concerning Special Services, they are: "Rules Governing the Use of Special Collections," "Acquisitions for Special Collections," and "Entry into and use of College Archives." For a complete list of library policies, click here.

Special Services offers access to its collection and reference assistance Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.  Literature searches on historical questions are performed as time permits. Photocopies of materials from the collection are available within copyright restrictions. Document delivery fees apply.  Reference queries are accepted in person, by telephone (563) 884-5465, FAX (563) 884-5267, E-mail Tim Salm or send by mail to:

Special Services
Palmer's Davenport Campus Library
Palmer College of Chiropractic
1000 Brady Street
Davenport, IA 52803-5287 

Link Disclaimer"The Palmer Chiropractic page contains links to third-party Web sites. These links are provided solely as a convenience to you. Palmer Chiropractic is not responsible for the content of linked third-party sites and does not make any representations regarding either the content or accuracy of materials on such third-party Web sites. If you decide to access linked third-party Web sites, you do so at your own risk. Your use of third-party Web sites is subject to the Terms and Conditions of use for those sites."

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