Research & Projects

The Anti-Eugenics Collective at Yale (AECY) is a group of students who research the histories and legacies of the American eugenics’ movement at Yale and beyond.

Faculty and administrators at Yale University played a pivotal role in the racist, ableist, and classist movement toward “building a better race” through their involvement in the American Eugenics Society and engagement with eugenic ideas, both locally and nationally. We view this history as crucial to understanding our present position as students and the power that Yale holds.

We focus on uncovering the histories of eugenics and addressing their contemporary implications. We investigate how eugenic ideology (as a discourse centered around genetic superiority, heredity, and “human betterment”) is intertwined with developments across academic disciplines, including statistics, law, medicine, biology, and psychology. In understanding how these logics came to be, we seek to explore how our society, policies, and institutions are profoundly linked to eugenic ideology.

The Community Health History as Harm Reduction initiative brings together historians, public health practitioners, physicians, students, and New Haven community members to explore the intertwined histories of community health, harm, and healing. Grounded in a commitment to equity and justice, the project investigates the relationships between race, class, and medicine in New Haven, focusing on the legacies of harm perpetuated by academic institutions like Yale University while amplifying historically marginalized voices.

This initiative integrates research, education, and community collaboration to examine the racialized politics of mental health and its historical impact. Researchers analyze archival materials from the Connecticut Mental Health Center (CMHC), uncovering its role in 1960s urban renewal projects that displaced Hill Neighborhood residents. Previous and existing community partnerships have led to original research and programs like the Critical Walking Tour of Yale and New Haven, which examines the ties between racial science, institutional power, and contemporary mental health practices.

Collaborative work with Hill neighborhood residents resulted in a pop-up exhibit honoring Fred Harris and the Hill Parents Association, now permanently displayed at the New Haven Free Public Library’s Wilson Branch. Featuring a bust of Harris by local artist Susan Clinard, the installation celebrates his legacy while making history accessible to the public.

Building on these efforts, the project is developing:

• Community-based workshops with the local health centers,

• A publicly accessible oral history collection, and

• Retrospective analyses of CMHC case records.

By integrating oral histories, archival research, and data analysis, the initiative uncovers complex narratives about race, class, and health in New Haven, fostering justice, healing, and inclusive dialogue.

The Cushing Patient Archives Project seeks to understand the lives of the patients whose tumors, brains, and photographs comprise the Cushing Registry. Harvey Cushing is an important figure at Yale Medical School. Yale's Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library is named to honor a gift from Cushing, and the Cushing Center celebrates Cushing’s groundbreaking surgical work. As a founding figure in American neurosurgery, Cushing’s life and career is well-documented in historical scholarship and biographical work. This research group is invested in learning about the patients whose illnesses made Cushing’s work possible and whose brains, tumors, and images remain a part of Yale’s collections today. 

Phase 1 of this project will build an archive of patient stories to be used in research and teaching.  Student researchers will use traditional archival methods as well as innovative storytelling methods to uncover historical documentation about these patients and to narrate their lives outside of the surgical suite. 

The Mistrusting Yale Project seeks to study the local history and impact of medical mistrust at Yale and in New Haven. Much of the existing scholarship on medical mistrust in marginalized communities has situated the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study as an origin point, rather than considering how longer histories of medical violence and structural inequality have shaped historic and current medical mistrust.

The Mistrusting Yale Project calls for a deeper understanding of medical mistrust that captures its complexity in relation to specific medical practices and institutions, and its relationship to other forms of structural violence and inequality. It builds upon the work of historian Vanessa Northington Gamble to explore the historical and current relationships between racism in healthcare and medical mistrust. It will focus on the particular ways that medical mistrust manifests in relation to Yale as an institution, and how New Haven communities articulate and experience medical mistrust. To do so, the project will use archival research alongside oral histories and the Medical Mistrust Index (MMI) to fully analyze medical mistrust in relation to Yale. It will also develop strategies for mitigating and repairing the harms of medical mistrust by helping to transform Yale into a trustworthy institution.

New Haven carries a storied and complex history of reproductive healthcare; it has been the site of ground-breaking research, significant legislation (including Griswold v. Connecticut), community activism, care innovation, and grave systemic harm. Despite the city’s proximity to one of the world’s preeminent medical schools and hospitals at Yale University, racialized and class-based disparities in matters of reproductive health continue—including in maternal mortality rates and breast/chest feeding ability. Current historical archives are dominated by the stories of medical professionals and research initiatives at Yale. The efforts of reproductive health activists and health practitioners in the larger community are represented to a lesser extent. The stories of people who have lived and have sought reproductive healthcare in New Haven exist only in the archival margins.

By blending oral history interviews and traditional paper archival materials (working with sources such as court cases, institutional records, and popular ephemera), RHHNH seeks to center the voices, stories, and experiences of New Haveners; of the people seeking care, creating health networks, and navigating the city/university's reproductive health geography. The goal of this project is two-fold: to build a local and personal reproductive health history archive, and to pursue research using archival finds in tandem with community partners and individual New Haveners to address on-going reproductive healthcare disparities. In partnership with local organizations and health practitioners, RHHNH constructs a community-driven framework for historical research to imagine a more patient-centered and accessible reproductive health landscape in the city of New Haven.