Sigmund Freud correspondence

Abstract: This group of documents largely consists of scholarly and popular press articles, as well as other publications and some unpublished manuscripts or drafts, about Sigmund Freud and his impact on psychoanalysis and the larger Western culture in the 20th century. There are also some articles and reprints by Freud; news clippings; and correspondence about him, some of it concerning his family's escape from Nazi-controlled Vienna.

Includes some handwritten and typed letters by Freud, as well as copies compiled from various sources. Main correspondents include Emil Oberholzer, Dr. T. Schnierer, and Karl Menninger, among others. Most of these letters have been translated from German into English.

Summary: These are handwritten and typed letters by Sigmund Freud, the Austrian psychoanalyst. Main correspondents include Emil Oberholzer, Dr. T. Schnierer, and Karl Menninger, among others. These letters are written in German and English and some translations are included. Correspondence relating to Freud's departure from Vienna in 1938 is also included. Material not made available online includes articles and publications under copyright about Freud and his work. These letters are part of the historic psychiatry material in the Menninger Archives. Many of the items in this portion of the Menninger Archives were purchased.

Language note: German, English.

Biog. Sketch (Full): Sigismund Schlomo Freud was born on 6 May, 1856 in Freiburg (now Pribor), Moravia (now part of the Czech Republic, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire) to Kallamon Jacob and Amalia Nathanson Freud. He was the first of 8 children to his mother; his father had two sons from a previous marriage. When Sigmund was four, the family moved to Vienna, Austria.

Freud received his medical degree at the age of 24. He met his future wife Martha Bernays when he was 26, and they were married four years later in 1887. With Martha, he had six children: Mathilde, Jean Martin, Oliver, Ernst, Sophie, and Anna.

Freud worked as a resident physician at the Allgemeine Krankenhaus (general hospital) in Vienna. He spent a few months in the psychiatry department there, and he spent a few months studying in Paris under Jean Martin Charcot. It was during this time that Freud became interested in hysteria, and after he moved back to Vienna began treating hysterical patients. He then became interested in--and started using the word--psychoanalysis. He published his book the Interpretation of Dreams in 1901.

Thereafter, Freud gathered around him others interested in psychoanalysis, and he continued writing and studying. By the early 1920s he developed cancer in his mouth, and this continued to plague him for the rest of his life. In March 1938, Nazi troops occupied Austria, and the Freuds were put under house arrest. Influential friends managed to help them escape to London, England a few months later, and there Sigmund Freud died on 23 September 1939.

Associated materials: Sigmund Freud Archives, Library of Congress.