The Janet G. Travell, M.D. Papers were donated to the University Archives, The Gelman Library, in 1998 by her daughters, Virginia Powell Street and Janet Powell Pinci.
This exhibit was organized by the University Archives, Department of Special Collections and was made possible through the support of The Gelman Library and The George Washington University.
The co-curators of the exhibit were Sonya Lynn Tupone, GW graduate student, Museum Studies Program, and G. David Anderson, University Archivist. Special thanks also to Lyle Slovick, Assistant University Archivist, for mounting the exhibit, and all those who donated their time and assistance in the development of the Janet G. Travell Collection and this exhibit.
By Sonya Tupone, Graduate Student Assistant, University Archives
Dr. Janet G. Travell (1901-1997) was a distinguished member of the medical community, serving as Personal Physician to two United States Presidents: John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson (and the first woman to hold the post.) She was also renowned as an expert on myofascial pain - a term used to describe pain and dysfunction of skeletal muscles - and pioneered numerous techniques for dealing with chronic pain. Dr. Travell co-authored, with David G. Simons, M.D., the acclaimed two-volume textbook Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction. The Trigger Point Manual.
Dr. Travell served on the faculty of The George Washington University School of Medicine and University Hospital as Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine from 1961-1970, Emeritus Clinical Professor of Medicine from 1970-1988, and was made an Honorary Clinical Professor of Medicine in 1988. She remained an active figure up until her death at the age of ninety-five, writing, giving lectures, and attending conferences.
The life and professional career of Dr. Travell is now the subject of a major exhibit currently on display in the Special Collections Research Center at Gelman Library. The President's Physician: The Life and Legacy of Dr. Janet G. Travell, runs through June 30th, and was co-curated by myself and University Archivist G. David Anderson.
Contrary to popular opinion, putting together an exhibit, be it large or small, is no easy task. This one involved a number of steps over the past five months to produce what you see now, and Assistant University Archivist Lyle Slovick and I worked over 260 hours to get it in place. First came the conceptualization of what it would contain and what themes it would cover (this is part of the "storyboarding" process.) Then I culled interesting items from over a hundred boxes of materials - photographs (some of which were reproduced in larger sizes by GW's photography department), correspondence, articles, and artifacts, and decided where they should go and how they should be displayed. Labels were then written to accompany the objects, images were scanned for the online exhibit, and the items were mounted on panels, floor cases, and wall cases. All of this was part of the method (or madness) of making the Janet G. Travell exhibit, which was both an exciting and stressful experience.
One of the more challenging and crucial aspects of doing an exhibit is coming up with the story or the "big" idea. For this exhibit, the hard part was jelling the varied and complex life that Dr. Travell lived into a comprehensible story. How does one simply yet effectively tell the story of a woman who did some very extraordinary things? She was a president's physician, a pioneer in myofascial pain studies, a designer of seats and chairs, as well as a wife, mother, researcher, teacher, and author. After reading her autobiography, Office Hours: Day and Night, I took all these aspects of Dr. Travell's life and broke them down into five major sections: family life, education, medical practice, career as physician to two presidents, and her legacy. From these, sub-sections were added, such as: the courtship between Dr. Travell and her husband John Powell; Travell's work with chair, tractor, and airplane seating design; her technique in using ethyl chloride spray as a treatment for muscular pain; and the emphasis she placed on healthy living and daily exercise.
After completing a rough outline of the sections, it was then a matter of measuring cases and laying out what the exhibit space would look like, along with pulling objects, images, and ephemera from the Travell collection. The items that were pulled would highlight these five major sections and subsections. This then led into the very time-consuming process of writing and editing descriptive labels, which we were writing and proof reading up to the day of the exhibit opening. There is just no "good" word to describe label writing. After this came the actual installation and mounting of items, which amounted to over 150 items and about as many labels.
Essentially, what I have learned from this process is to be ultra-organized when working with so many materials because it is very easy to loose track of an item, or where it came from. I have also gained very valuable insight, help, and direction from David and Lyle on the making of this exhibit. Talking often and discussing the format of the exhibit with them helped to keep me on course. Doing this exhibit was very rewarding because now that it is finally finished, I can look at it and be proud knowing that other people may learn something new about a remarkable person, as well as being able to honor a woman who truly enjoyed life to the fullest and changed the lives of many people.
The exhibit is open to the public Mondays through Fridays, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information contact G. David Anderson, University Archivist at (202) 994-7283 or call Special Collections at 202-994-7549.
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