Record Details

The Monica Study, 1953-1995

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

View Archive Info
 
 
Field Value
 
Title The Monica Study, 1953-1995
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/CFCKDB
 
Creator Engel Archive Committee of the University of Rochester
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description The Monica Study is perhaps the single largest prospective case study ever conducted, including 42 years of film, video, interview, and psychological testing data of an individual and 15 of her family members. It documents the life of Monica, an American woman born with congenital atrasia of the esophagus who was fed by a gastric fistula until 2 years of age when corrective surgery was performed.

The project began in October of 1953 when Drs. Franz Reichsman and George Engel met Monica, age 15 months, while she was hospitalized for retarded growth and development, depression and malnutrition. What began then as a limited case study of depression in an infant with a gastric fistula expanded into an intensive, multimethod, multimedia, longitudinal exploration of her life. After filming and testing Monica during this nine month hospital stay, the research team continued to follow her development after reconstructive surgery of the esophagus at age two, into childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Monica married at age 19 and bore four daughters over the next seven years. Data collection of Monica, her mother, siblings, husband and four children, continued until Murray Center acquisition of the data in 1995. Investigators anticipate continued contact with Monica and her family in the future.


The Murray Archive holds additional analogue materials for this study (11 hours of silent film (transferred to video) dating from 1953 to 1976; 40 hours of video, dating from 1972 to 1994; 232 interviews (with Monica and family members); 252 psychological tests (including projective, personality, and intelligence tests of Monica and family); 464 notes from observation of laboratory testing sessions, 39 notes from phone conversations; 148 transcripts of laboratory sessions; 57 pieces of artwork (by Monica, her siblings, and her children); 36 items of correspondence; 30 experiments; 56 medical notes; 6 newspaper articles; 145 other notes and items; 1586 photographs; and 248 audiotapes of laboratory sessions).
The paper data for this study have been digitized. This material can be accessed with an approved application form.

Audio Data Availability Note: This study contains audio data that have been digitized. There are 130 audio files available.
 
Subject Social Sciences
 
Type case study/oral history, longitudinal