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Mosher (Clelia D.) Papers
SC0011
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Table of contents
Language of Material:
Undetermined
Contributing Institution:
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Title: Clelia D. Mosher Papers
Creator:
Mosher, Clelia Duel
Identifier/Call Number: SC0011
Identifier/Call Number: 18831
Physical Description:
4.75 Linear Feet
(6 boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1886-1938
Immediate Source of Acquisition note
The Clelia Mosher Papers were given to the Stanford University Libraries by the Mosher
estate following Dr. Mosher's death in 1940. The papers were stored but not arranged until
the creation of the University Archives in 1965.
The materials are open for research use.
Property rights reside with the repository. Literary rights reside with the creators of the
documents or their heirs. To obtain permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the
Public Services Librarian of the Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives.
[Identification of item], Clelia D. Mosher Papers (SC0011). Department of Special
Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
Volume X,
The Mosher Sex Survey is available
on microfilm.
Some photographs of Clelia Mosher, both formal and informal, and of women students in
exercise studies by Mosher were transferred to the Stanford Historical Photograph Collection
(SC1071).
Christmas cards from Herbert Hoover were transferred to the Hoover Institution
Archives.
Clelia Duel Mosher, the daughter of Cornelius Duel Mosher, M.D. and Sarah Burritt Mosher,
was born on December 16, 1863 in Albany, New York. She graduated from Wellesley College in
1891, and spent the next year studying at both Cornell University and the University of
Wisconsin. She then attended Stanford University, receiving an A.B. in zoology in 1893 and a
masters in physiology in 1894. She received her M.D. from Johns Hopkins University in
1900.
Dr. Mosher returned to Palo Alto to set up practice as a physician. She joined the Stanford
faculty as a professor of personal hygiene in 1910, retiring as Professor emeritus in 1929.
Interested particularly in women's health, she carried out her research and writing
interests both as a physician and faculty member in the Department of Physical Hygiene, the
linear ancestor of Stanford's Department of Athletics, Physical Education and
Recreation.
Mosher was a fellow in the American Medical Association (1906-1936) and in the American
Association for Advancement of Science. She was also a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi,
and Kappa Alpha Theta. An avid genealogist, she was a member of the Daughters of the
American Revolution.
Between 1901 and 1929, Mosher published twenty-one books, including four "War Sketches"
which appeared in the Medical Woman's Journal, 1921. She died in Palo Alto in 1940.
The collection contains primarily correspondence, writings (published and unpublished),
diaries, and biographical and genealogical material spanning the years 1886 to 1938.
Correspondents include Ray Lyman Wilbur, William H. Welch (President of Johns Hopkins),
David Starr Jordan, and Havelock Ellis.
Six bound volumes of her notes, reports, and charts,
Hygiene and Physiology of Women, can be found in box 3. Volume "X" of this
series, known as the Mosher Sex Survey, has been republished as
The Mosher Survey: Sexual Attitudes of 45 Victorian Women
(edited by James Mahood and Christine Wenberg. New York: Arno Press, 1980, 469
pp.).
Boxes 3 and 4 also include extensive biographical and genealogical material, including
photographs.
Publications based on use of this collection include:
Degler, Carl.
"What ought to be and what was:
women's sexuality in the 19th century,"
>American Historical Review
79:5 (1974) 1474-1490.
Degler, Carl.
>"A 'dream' discovery: the
Mosher survey,"
> Imprint 3:2 (Oct.
1977).
Jacobs, Kathryn Allamong.
>"Clelia Duel
Mosher,"
>Johns Hopkins Magazine
(June 1979).
>The Mosher Survey: sexual attitudes of 45
Victorian women.
Edited by James Mahoon and Christine Wenberg, with an
introduction by Carl Degler. New York: Arno Press, 1980.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Women -- Health and hygiene -- United States.
Women -- Sexual behavior -- History.
Sex customs -- History. -- United States
Stanford University. Department of Physical Hygiene --
General subdivision--Faculty.;
Mosher, Clelia Duel
Welch, William H.
Wilbur, Ray L. (Ray Lyman)
Jordan, David Starr,
Ellis, Havelock,
Coolidge, Mary Roberts,