Description
The Bolt Family Papers are arranged in seven series. Series I consists
of biographical materials, including sixteen boxes of family diaries
(1893-1973); Series II contains family and business correspondence (1887-1957);
Series III consists of eleven Bolt family scrapbooks(1913-1952); Series IV
consists of the writings of Richard Arthur Bolt (1900-1960), while Series V
contains Bolt Family memorabilia; Series VI contains various public health
writings not by Dr. Bolt; and Series VII contains the family's substantial
photograph collections, which include 17 boxes of images of China, Japan and
Korea (1911-1916), Germany, Austria and Hungary (1933), as well as California
(1899-1904) and elsewhere.
Background
The scion of this distinguished family, Dr. Richard Arthur Bolt
(1880-1959), was an authority on child health care. Bolt was Medical Director
of the U.S. Indemnity (Tsing Hua) College, Beijing (1911-1916); Chief of the
Bureau of Child Hygiene, Cleveland (Ohio) Department of Public Health
(1917-1918); Instructor, Case Western Reserve University (1916-1920); Lecturer,
Johns Hopkins University (1920-1925); Consultant to the U.S. Children's Bureau
(1924-1937); Assistant Professor, University of California (1925-1929);
Associate Professor, Case Western Reserve University (1929-1945); and, Lecturer
in Maternal and Child Health, University of California (1945-1948). Bolt
studied child health in Germany (1933) and was a member of the White House
Conference on Children (1939). He was author of numerous monographs on public
health topics. On domestic and overseas trips Dr. Bolt took many photographs
that he later used to illustrate public and academic lectures.