Tourney Sisters Revisit APA Library 30 Years After Garfield Tourney’s Rare Books Donation

Thirty years after the Garfield and Helen W. Tourney Rare Books Room was dedicated as part of the APA Library, Garfield Tourney’s daughters—Patricia Tourney and Catherine “Trinka” Doherty—returned to visit the Melvin Sabshin, M.D. Library & Archives at APA headquarters in March to view their father’s collection. (Another daughter, Carolyn Tourney Florek, had hoped to accompany her sisters but was unable.)

The 1994 dedication occurred as part of the 150th anniversary of APA’s founding in 1844.

Tourney, a psychiatrist who held positions at the University of Iowa, Wayne State University, and the University of Mississippi, donated more than 450 books related to the history of psychiatry. The donation is the most significant contribution to the library in recent years and includes valuable texts on the history of witchcraft in the treatment of mental illness and the development of modern science and psychiatry. He also contributed dozens of pieces of fine art, prints, illustrations, and engravings. It is now the core of APA’s rare books collection.

Tourney—an avid collector, bibliophile, and historian—was a member of the APA History, Library, and Museum Committee in the 1980s. During this period, the APA library—then at APA’s headquarters at 14th and K streets in Washington, D.C—housed several historical treasures, including part of the extensive professional library of Adolf Meyer, M.D. (donated to APA in 1955) and the Marion Kenworthy, M.D., collection, which contains works from the 17th to 19th centuries and was bequeathed to APA in 1980.

“It feels like a sacred place,” said Trinka Tourney Doherty. “It’s good to know that APA really appreciates history and my father’s contribution. This is where his collection belongs.”

Patricia Tourney, who attended the original dedication of the collection in 1994, agreed. “Being here brings Dad back to life,” she said. “At home, I will open a book he had given me and find a letter he had written at the time. It’s a little like that being here at the library. It’s just fun being here.” After APA moved out of its headquarters at 14th and K streets in 2002, the contents of the library were held in storage. In 2018, the APA Foundation opened the Melvin Sabshin, M.D. Library & Archives at APA’s new headquarters in D.C.’s Southwest neighborhood overlooking the Potomac River and within sight of Capitol Hill. The library is an environmentally controlled space to preserve the collections for future generations and to highlight the history of psychiatry and APA through special exhibits that can be viewed in person or via online galleries.

The library has about 1,700 rare books, artifacts, photographs, and oral histories documenting the history of psychiatry and APA and the contributions of prominent psychiatrists.

Patricia and Trinka remember their father as a collector—of everything, but especially books: he had more than 10,000 volumes in his collection. “He really loved the history of psychiatry, and he always wanted his students—who were very diligent about becoming good psychiatrists—to share his passion for how important that history is,” Patricia recalled.

When he began to lecture, people paid attention. “He was a natural teacher,” Trinka said.

Tourney was a member of the American Osler Society, dedicated to the life and work of William Osler, M.D., and to the study of the humanities in medicine and the history of medicine. Tourney received his medical degree from the University of Illinois in 1948. In 1967, he and his wife and family moved to Iowa City, where he was a professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa. “When we first moved there, we lived in a rental because Dad couldn’t find a house with a suitable library,” Patricia recalled. “He had a house built specifically to accommodate his library.”

In 1971 the family moved to Detroit, where Tourney was chief of psychiatry at Wayne State University. He was a life fellow of APA and served as a consultant to APA’s 150th anniversary in 1994. He retired from the University of Mississippi as emeritus professor.

Patricia resides in Sterling Heights, Mich. She received her degree in civil engineering from Michigan Technological University and an M.B.A. from the University of Detroit. Trinka lives in Richmond, Mich., with her husband. She received degrees in anthropology from Kalamazoo College and in nursing from Texas Woman's University. Carolyn Tourney Florek resides in Santa Fe, N.M. with her husband. She received a degree in geology from Wayne State University and a fine arts degree from University of Tulsa.

The Melvin Sabshin, M.D. Library & Archives is a program of the APA Foundation. ■