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Size | 1.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 600 items) |
Abstract | Edgemont Community Clinic, a community-based health care facility in the low-income Edgemont section of Durham, N.C., functioned from 1968 to 1978. It was staffed by volunteers, chiefly members of the Student Health Action Committee and other health sciences students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University. Correspondence, reports, notes, and other items in office files retained by Linda Woodard, who was active in the Edgemont Community Clinic as an organizer and medical technologist. While correspondence and financial records are not extensive, it is possible to derive a rough understanding of the Clinic's history from these papers. Of particular interest is a file of reports detailing some of the Clinic's operations and placing the Edgemont Community Clinic in the context of the national movement of the 1960s and 1970s for community-sponsored free health care. |
Creator | Edgemont Community Clinic (Durham, N.C.) |
Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection. |
Language | English |
Processed by: Roslyn Holdzkom, May 1990
Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008
Updated by: Laura Hart, March 2021
Back to TopThe following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.
Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.
In October 1968, the Edgemont Community Clinic in Durham, North Carolina, opened. The clinic, designed to serve residents of the surrounding low-income neighborhood, was staffed chiefly by health science student volunteers from Duke University and students from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who were members of the Student Health Action Committee (SHAC). Holding sessions twice a week, by 1979, the Edgemont Community Clinic had logged over 2,000 patient visits per year. Clinic volunteers, overseen by licensed practitioners who also donated their time, administered general physical examinations, treated acute and chronic medical illnesses, and operated a free pharmacy and laboratory.
Throughout its history, the Edgemont Community Clinic never developed a secure financial base, despite support from Duke, UNC, and, for a series of educational programs in public health, from the United States Office of Economic Opportunity (O.E.O.). In an effort to strengthen the clinic's economic position, consolidation with the Lincoln Community Health Center, affiliated with Durham's Lincoln Hospital, was discussed in 1972. The inevitable loss of student control that such a merger would have involved defeated the measure.
The Edgemont Community Clinic survived until December 1978, when, because of worsening economic conditions compounded by a large population loss in the area and a vital need to repair the clinic's facilities, SHAC decided to move its operations to the adjacent East End community.
Back to TopMaterials in this collection are chiefly correspondence, reports, notes, and other items in office files retained by Linda Woodard, who was active in the Edgemont Community Clinic as an organizer and medical technologist. While correspondence and financial papers are not extensive, it is possible to derive a rough understanding of the Clinic's history from these papers. Of particular interest is a file of reports detailing some of the Clinic's operations and placing the Edgemont Community Clinic in the context of the national movement for community-sponsored free health care that was underway in the 1960s and 1970s.
There are also a few photographs of the Clinic, workers, and patients.
Back to TopOffice files consisting of routine correspondence, reports, notes, and other items. East End Health Center materials consist of annoucements of its opening and its relation to the Edgemont Community Center.
Folder 1 |
Board of directors, 1971-1973 |
Folder 2 |
Building renovation, 1969 |
Folder 3-4
Folder 3Folder 4 |
Clippings |
Folder 5 |
Correspondence |
Folder 6 |
Director's manual |
Folder 7 |
East end Health Center, 1979 |
Folder 8 |
Finances/supplies |
Folder 9 |
Forms |
Folder 10 |
Grant applications |
Folder 11 |
Lincoln Community Health Center, 1972 |
Folder 12 |
Minutes, 1973-1978 |
Folder 13 |
Miscellaneous |
Folder 14 |
Notes |
Folder 15 |
Operating information, 1975 |
Folder 16-17
Folder 16Folder 17 |
Personnel |
Folder 18 |
Procedures manual, 1978 |
Folder 19 |
Reports |
Folder 20 |
Student Health Action Committee |
Folder 21 |
Survey of free clinic, 1972 |
Photographs of the Edgemont Community Clinic, workers, and patients.
Image Folder PF-4545/1 |
Photographs, undated |