The Pearl L. Kendrick papers date from 1888 to 1979 and measure seven linear feet. The papers are arranged in nine series: Personal, Correspondence, Correspondence--Foreign, Michigan Department of Health, University of Michigan, Consultant Files, Professional Associations, Speeches and Articles, and Visual Materials. The collection is strongest in its documentation of the national and international network of public health practitioners, physicians, and scientists who corresponded with each other about their studies of various diseases and their prevention, in particular whooping cough. This voluminous correspondence reflects Kendrick's reputation as one of the world's foremost experts on pertussis. The collection is relatively weak in its documentation of Kendrick's work as an instructor at the University of Michigan.
Pearl Luella Kendrick (1890-1980) was born August 24, 1890 in Wheaton, Illinois. She was the daughter of Ella (Shaver) Kendrick and Milton H. Kendrick, a Free Methodist (Holiness) preacher in New York state. Pearl Kendrick attended high school in Sherburne, New York, graduating in 1908. She enrolled in Greenville College, Greenville, Illinois, in 1910 but after her first year transferred to Syracuse University, from which she received a B.S. in 1914. Kendrick taught in rural schools after her graduation from high school and for five years after graduating from college she taught science and served as a principal in New York high schools. In 1919 and 1920 she worked as a laboratory assistant in the division of laboratories and research of the New York State Department of Health.
Kendrick moved to Lansing, Michigan, in 1920 to work as a bacteriologist in the Michigan Department of Health laboratory. In 1926 she was appointed Associate Director of Laboratories and Chief of the Western Michigan Branch Laboratory of the Michigan Department of Health in Grand Rapids. She pursued a graduate degree during leaves of absence and earned an Sc.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health in 1932.
Kendrick's most important work was done at the Michigan Department of Health, where she carried out extensive studies on the diagnosis and prevention of whooping cough. Whooping cough was one of the most serious diseases of young children in the early 1930s, claiming approximately 6000 lives annually in the United States. Kendrick and her colleagues undertook an investigation of the pertussis bacillus, the etiologic agent of whooping cough, and in 1934 began a series of field trials to test the pertussis vaccine. Forty years later Grace Eldering, Kendrick's colleague, longtime companion, and successor as Chief of the Western Michigan Branch Laboratory of the Michigan Department of Health, recalled tramping the streets of Grand Rapids to gather specimens for the study: As soon as the laboratory closed in the afternoon, we set out to find new patients. The early 1930s were years of the great depression, and we learned about the disease and the depression at the same time. Many of the families we visited were very poor and their living conditions pitiful. Our watchword became 'Round to the back and up the stairs.' We listened to sad stories told by desperate fathers who could find no work. We collected specimens by the light of kerosene lamps, from whooping, vomiting, strangling children. We saw what the disease could do.
Although a pertussis vaccine had been prepared in the first decade of the twentieth century, confidence in its efficacy had declined because of the lack of adequate testing. Kendrick's field study demonstrated the effectiveness of pertussis vaccine and also helped establish the field trial as an important method for measuring immunization. In 1940 the Michigan Department of Health started general distribution of the vaccine.
Because of her success with the pertussis vaccine, Kendrick was asked to act as a consultant on immunization projects and pertussis studies in a number of foreign countries. In 1940 and 1942 Kendrick assisted with whooping cough studies being carried out by the Ministry of Health of Mexico. Between 1949 and 1965 Kendrick served periodically as a World Health Organization consultant to various countries--most often in Latin America--setting up immunization programs. Kendrick was also a member of the Immunology Delegation that visited laboratories in the Soviet Union in 1962 as part of a United States-Union of Soviet Socialist Republics exchange program.
From 1951 until her retirement in 1960 Kendrick was a lecturer in the Department of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan. She continued her study of the pertussis vaccine at the University, and also worked to develop multi-purpose vaccines. Kendrick was active in professional associations throughout her career, serving as chairman of several committees of the American Public Health Association. She died in 1980.
