Research Library: Edwin Arthur Larson Papers

The papers of Edwin Arthur Larson (standing, first on left) document the early years of the Florida Mental Health Institute as well as the larger trends in Florida's mental health care from the late 1960s to the end of the 1970s. Larson donated 4.0 linear feet of manuscripts, typed reports, and memoranda to the Institute in November 1986. A 1958 graduate of the medical school at Chicago's Northwestern University, Larson gained certification in General Psychiatry from the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in 1965. His primary research interests included forensic psychiatry, drug and substance abuse, adjustment disorders, and adolescent psychiatry.

Larson worked with or consulted with a number of mental health institutions in the state of Florida. He served as an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Florida in Gainesville from 1964 to 1970. From 1970 to 1974, Larson assumed the leadership of the Bureau of Training, Research, and Evaluation in the State Division of Mental Health, Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRS). from 1974 to 1975, Larson was Chief of Services at the Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee. After that period, he entered private practice.

The files in this collection contain staff recruitment information, materials on program design and planning, documents related to the construction of the Institute, and similar information. Arrangement is chronological within three series.

[under construction]

1. Reading Files (1969-1971),
2. Miscellaneous (1970-1977), and
3. Reorganization Files (1975).