The Wilma T. Donahue papers document her career as a teacher, researcher, and administrator at the University of Michigan. The papers span the years 1945-1990 with the bulk of the material falling within the two decades bound by 1949-1969. The Donahue papers are a subset of the Michigan Historical Collections/Institute of Gerontology Joint Archives in Gerontology and can best be understood as an integral element of that larger set.
The Donahue papers provide a clear insight to the development of the field of gerontology as an academic discipline and as an area of concern for policy makers and the general public. The earliest files reflect Donahue's training as a psychologist as it relates to her research on testing, returning veterans, and the blind. In the late 1940s Donahue and Clark Tibbitts began to research and publish articles on the aging population in America. Donahue's papers reflect this new interest as the focus of her writings now turns to issues of aging: housing, mental and physical health, adult education, and the economics of retirement. These issues dominated Donahue's research for twenty years and her papers document her increasing stature as an influential figure in gerontology at the state and national levels, especially her involvement with the University of Michigan Annual Conferences on Gerontology, the Michigan Commission on Aging, and her "cutting edge" research on housing the aging.
The collection came to the library in different accessions and from different sources. Although there is some overlap, the files as received represent distinct series. These series are Articles, Conferences, Addresses and Meetings, 1949-1970; Professional Activities and Affiliations, 1953-1970; Research Projects, 1955-1971; University of Michigan: Administration and Teaching, 1946-1968; Videotapes: White House Conferences as Agents of Social Change, 1979; International Center for Social Gerontology; and Miscellaneous.
Wilma T. Donahue, born December 4, 1900, earned three degrees at the University of Michigan: her AB in 1926; an MA in 1927; and a Ph.D. in psychology in 1937. She began her career at the University of Michigan at the Bureau of Psychological Services in 1935. Beginning in 1945, Donahue worked at the Institute for Human Adjustment (IHA), where she continued to work in a variety of capacities until 1965. At the same time, she taught and carried out research on aging. By 1965 Donahue had established her position as an authority on gerontology, as reflected by her role as chair of the Division of Gerontology.
In 1965 the State of Michigan established the Institute of Gerontology, a joint venture between the University of Michigan and Wayne State University. As the co-director of the Institute in Ann Arbor, Donahue capped her long career as educator and administrator in Michigan. She retired from the University of Michigan in 1970, but continued her crusade to improve the status of the aging by serving as director of the International Center for Social Gerontology in Washington, D.C.
Donahue's career as a gerontologist spans five decades: from the late 1940s, when academics first became aware of the growing size of the aged sector of the population, to the 1980s, when the "graying of America" became an accepted feature of the social landscape. Her career was not merely academic; she took her knowledge before the legislative powers of the state and nation in her effort to secure an equitable share of social welfare for the aging. She has worked closely with government agencies and professional organizations to improve both the standard of living of older Americans and the understanding of the process of aging.
Wilma Donahue continued to be active in geriatric scholarship until her death in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in August 1993. During her long life, her interests included many facets of aging, from housing and economic security to the physical and psychological aspects inherent in the aging process. The full scope of her work can only be grasped by reading her curriculum vitae, but a sense of it can be glimpsed through the titles of some of the works she edited or wrote: Housing and the Aging (1954); Earning Opportunities for Older Workers (1955); Aging and Social Health in the U.S. and Europe (1959); Social and Psychological Aspects of Aging (1962); A Therapeutic Milieu for Geriatric Patients (1969); Adequacy of Federal Response to Housing Needs of Older Americans (1975); White House Conferences as Agents of Social Change (1979); and Aging in the 1980s and Beyond (1981).
