The Library of Congress Freud Exhibit will likely go forward and represent psychoanalysis in a fair and positive manner, thanks in part to grassroots support initiated by several Washington-based members of the New York Freudian Society: Harriet Basseches, Elizabeth Fritsch, and Nancy Goodman.
The Washington Committee for the Freud Exhibition was formed in December of 1995 after a New York Times article announcing the cancellation of the Library of Congress (LOC) Freud Exhibit, which was scheduled to open this fall.
The article said insufficient funding was a reason for the Library's decision, but it also implied that the cancellation was also prompted by a group of petitioners who claimed Freud was irrelevant to current thought, making the exhibit inappropriate. Subsequent information has suggested the article was inaccurate from the point of view of both the Library of Congress and at least some of the petitioners. At the time, however, the article sounded an alarm from many quarters.
Basseches, for one, received calls from colleagues in New York and Washington, asking what could be done about a situation that had such ominous implications for psychoanalysis. She began to devise a plan to contact and meet with officials from the Library of Congress to express concern and learn the facts behind the exhibit cancellation. Goodman took on the task, by first contacting the Librarian of Congress, James Billington, who in turn put her in touch with the head of exhibitions, Winston Tabb.
Goodman began a dialogue with Tabb and set up a meeting for February 5, 1996. In the meantime Basseches spoke with Harold Blum, chair of the Exhibition Committee, informing him about the efforts. In his enthusiastic response, he advised forming a grassroots movement separate from American or Exhibition Committee channels. Goodman had also communicated with Arnold Richards, editor of JAPA, who substantially added to the series of issues to cover in the meeting with Tabb.
By the February meeting, the committee had expanded in representation from the original Freudian Society group to a committee made up of all psychoanalytic organizations local to Washington, DC. Fritsch contacted the president of the Baltimore-Washington Society for Psychoanalysis and the president of the Washington Psychoanalytic Society, and Goodman approached the presidents of the two local chapters of Division 39. The group at the meeting, in addition to the original three Freudian Society members, consisted of James Miller, president of the Baltimore-Washington Society; Steven Weissman, who represented the Washing-ton Psychoanalytic Society; Marilyn Meyers, president of the Washington Psych-ologists for the Study of Psychoanalysis; and Molly Donovan, past president of the Washington Society of Psychoanalytic Psychology.
Also at the meeting were LOC staff members Norma Baker, director of development; Jill Brett, public affairs officer; Irene Burnham, public programs officer; and Jim Hudson, chief, manuscript division. Goodman, who had taken the initiative, became the chair of the Washington committee. At the meeting, Tabb addressed Goodman's agenda items. He said the LOC had never intended to cancel the exhibit but only to postpone it because of lack of funds, and that 1998 and the year 2000 had been discussed as tentative rescheduling dates. The committee members volunteered to ask our organizations they repres-ented to help to facilitate the project, for example, with fund raising, publicity, and planning ancillary events. Other agenda items included providing a communications network to other organizations and proposing further meetings to include not only the local committee but leaders of other national psychoanalytic groups.
Less than a month after the meeting, the LOC released an announcement that its exhibition “Sigmund Freud, Conflict and Culture” would open in the fall of 1998. Tabb has since suggested to Goodman that another meeting with the Washington Committee be planned once the exhibition designs are better defined. Michael Roth, guest curator of the exhibit, is working with writers and scholars to ensure that diverse viewpoints are represented. Roth says, “The exhibit will draw attention to the extraordinary collection of materials at the Library of Congress and underscore their importance by examining Freud's enormous cultural impact in our century.”
The LOC houses the world's largest Freud archives, including 45,000 manuscripts, films, maps, and photographs.
The Washington Committee for the Freud Exhibition will continue its monitoring of developments for the exhibition.
Correction
In the article “In Mexico, a Vibrant Psychoanalysis Spreads Its Wings” by Ramon Perez (TAP29/2), Lius Feder was inadvertantly omitted as one of the participants in the Annual Sigmund Freud Conference.
Basseches is president of the New York Freudian Society (NYFS). Goodman is program chair for the Confederation of Independent Psychoanalytic Societies and a member of NYFS.