Eileen Roach Cunningham

Eileen Roach Cunningham

VUMC History, Library and Information Technology

Photographic portrait of Eileen Roach Cunningham. Mrs. Eileen Cunningham began her career as a research assistant in the anatomy department at Johns Hopkins University. She later married Sydney Cunningham and moved with him to Nashville when he became Professor of Anatomy at Vanderbilt in 1925. After joining the medical library staff at Vanderbilt in 1926, Cunningham was appointed Associate Librarian at Vanderbilt School of Medicine (1928) and Head Librarian (1929). It was here that she developed a new scheme of classifying medical literature by anatomical system, based on her method for filing reprints at Johns Hopkins. Eventually, the Cunningham Classification for Medical Literature went through four published editions and was adopted by medical libraries throughout the world. It was later used as the basis for both the Army Medical Library and the National Library of Medicine's classification plans.

For more information please see the Finding Aid for Eileen Roach Cunningham.

March, 1958

Lewis Studios

Eskind Biomedical Library Special Collections Photographic Archive

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