Scope and Content Note
The papers of David Rapaport (1911-1960) span the years 1911-1997, with the bulk of the material dating from 1948 to 1960. The collection documents Rapaport's research and writings in the fields of psychology and psychoanalysis largely as a research associate at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The papers are in English and Hungarian and are organized in two parts. Part I contains material received by the Library between 1962 and 1970 and is arranged in five series: General Correspondence , Foreign Correspondence , Austen Riggs Center , Miscellaneous Correspondence , and Speeches, Writings, and Lectures File . Part II comprises an addition to the collection and is organized in four series: David Rapaport Papers , Elvira Rapaport Strasser Papers , Formerly Closed , and Closed material.
Rapaport's correspondence dates primarily from 1948 to 1960 during his years at the Austen Riggs Center. It focuses on his research and writings in psychology and psychoanalysis including his development of diagnostic psychological testing and his efforts to clarify and systematize psychoanalytic theory. The General Correspondence series contains Rapaport's extensive correspondence with psychologists, psychoanalysts, and professional organizations in the United States. Correspondence with colleagues overseas is located in the Foreign Correspondence series. Prominent correspondents include Bruno Bettelheim, John C. Burnham, Sibylle K. Escalona, Hanna Fenichel, Anna Freud, Merton Max Gill, Heinz Hartmann, Lawrence S. Kubie, Karl A. Menninger, Martin Mayman, Roy Schafer, Richard F. Sterba, and Peter H. Wolff. Routine correspondence including invitations to speak and requests for reprints is filed in the Miscellaneous Correspondence series. The Austen Riggs Center series largely concerns administrative matters pertaining to committees, funding, programs, research associates, staff, and trustees.
The Speeches, Writings, and Lectures File series documents Rapaport's prolific writing career, his extensive teaching experience, and his numerous speaking engagements. Drafts of articles, books, book reviews, lectures, and speeches, transcripts of discussions, correspondence with colleagues, and research material explore his research interests in psychological diagnostic testing, ego psychology, emotions and memory, metapsychology, motivation, psychoanalytic theory, and thought processes.
Part II contains an addition to the Rapaport Papers. Included are photocopies of outgoing letters, largely dated 1950-1960, and a lengthy letter to friends describing a trip to his native Hungary in 1960. Also included are a series of dream notes made by Rapaport as part of his research on consciousness. The addition further includes two of his early psychological works published in Hungary prior to his immigration to the United States.
The bulk of Part II consists of the papers of Rapaport's wife, Elvira Rapaport Strasser , a mathematician and university professor, who resumed use of her maiden name in the early 1970s. Her papers document programs and scholarships established in her husband's name at the Austen Riggs Center and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The bulk of her papers was closed until April 2003 and is now available in the Formerly Closed series. Among the formerly closed material is correspondence with her husband's colleagues including Merton Max Gill, exchanges with fellow mathematicians, and letters from Hungarian friends and family members. The Formerly Closed series also contains her unpublished memoirs describing her early life in Hungary, her experiences on a kibbutz in Palestine in 1933-1935, and her immigration to the United States in 1938.