{"id":3707,"date":"2026-05-13T01:20:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T01:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/alcoholstudies-archives\/?p=3707"},"modified":"2026-04-27T12:05:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T12:05:02","slug":"strachan-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/alcoholstudies-archives\/strachan-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"Hidden Collections: The Strachan Papers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Headshot<\/a>

J. George Strachan (Source: Alcoholism treatment and prevention programs in Alberta, p. 12)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The history of alcohol studies is told through major institutions (Yale and Rutgers) and well-known figures, such as E. M. \u201cBunky\u201d Jellinek<\/a>, Selden D. Bacon<\/a>, and Mark Keller<\/a>. Less frequently do we acknowledge people who connected those institutions and individuals, who moved ideas across borders, translated theory into practice, and, most importantly, saved the paper trail. One of those figures was J. George Strachan, a Canadian researcher whose career helped shape modern alcohol studies in Canada and whose careful documentation now lives on in a surprisingly small archival collection at Rutgers University Libraries.<\/p>\n

Strachan\u2019s professional life links the Yale Center of Alcohol Studies<\/a> and its Summer School<\/a> directly to the development of alcohol research, treatment, and policy in Canada. His long relationship with Yale faculty, his intellectual debt to Jellinek, and his determination to preserve records allow us to trace those connections in remarkable detail. All of that history, decades of collaboration, influence, and institutional formation, fits into just two archival boxes known as the Strachan Collection.<\/p>\n

Biosketch<\/h4>\n

J. George Strachan (1910\u20131996) was a Canadian researcher, writer, educator, administrator, and consultant whose work was instrumental in establishing alcoholism as a treatable illness within Canadian public health systems. Born in Montreal in 1910, Strachan came to the field with both administrative\u00a0expertise and lived knowledge. He achieved long-term recovery from alcoholism in the 1940s, an experience that shaped how he understood the condition: not only as a clinical problem, but as a social responsibility.<\/p>\n

\"Text<\/a>After early work in business and service in the U.S. Army Air Forces during the Second World War, Strachan moved into alcohol education and program development in the late 1940s. In 1951, he organized the Alcoholism Foundation of Alberta<\/a>, one of Canada\u2019s earliest comprehensive provincial programs addressing alcoholism through education, treatment, and research. As its executive director during its formative years, he helped lay the groundwork for what would become an integrated provincial system. Later, he served as a consultant to the Government of Alberta and worked with national and international addiction organizations.<\/p>\n

Strachan was a prolific and gifted writer. His books, such as Alcoholism: Treatable illness<\/em><\/a>, Practical alcoholism programming<\/i><\/a>, and Recovery from Alcoholism<\/a>,<\/em> translated emerging scientific ideas into language that clinicians, policymakers, and the general public could understand. Throughout his work, he insisted that alcoholism should be recognized not only as an individual illness, but as a public health issue requiring coordinated response.<\/p>\n

The Summer School and the Yale Center of Alcohol Studies<\/h4>\n

The year 1950 became a turning point came in Strachan\u2019s career, when he and his wife Jane attended the Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies<\/a> (SSAS). Like many North American professionals who passed through the Summer School in the postwar period, Strachan was exposed to a radically different way of thinking about drinking problems, one grounded in interdisciplinary research rather than moral judgment.<\/p>\n

At Yale, he was introduced to the ideas of as E. M. Jellinek<\/a>, Selden D. Bacon<\/a>, Leon Greenberg<\/a>, Raymond McCarthy<\/a>, and others who were redefining alcoholism as a disease process that could be studied, classified, and treated. The Summer School\u2019s integrated curriculum focusing on research, clinical practice, and public policy left a lasting impression and it became the model Strachan would later adapt for Alberta.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Yale connection evolved into decades of exchange of ideas with lots of practical outcomes. In the 1950s, faculty from the Center of Alcohol Studies regularly traveled to Alberta to lecture at conferences and training events. The first Alberta Conferences on Alcohol Studies was held in 1954 and 1955, sponsored by the Alcoholism Foundation of Alberta and the University of Alberta. These conferences, featuring Yale-affiliated speakers<\/a> such as Selden Bacon, Leon Greenberg, and Raymond McCarthy,\u00a0mirrored the Summer School\u2019s structure and content, effectively translating the Yale model into a Canadian setting.<\/span><\/p>\n

Strachan served as both alumnus and ambassador, embracing and adopting the groundbreaking programs at the Yale Center of Alcohol Studies as a model for Canadian alcoholism education and treatment.<\/p>\n

Strachan and Jellinek<\/h4>\n

Among all of Strachan\u2019s professional relationships, none was more significant or more thoroughly documented than his relationship with E. M. Jellinek. The first introduction at the 1950 Summer School quickly grew into a close professional bond and personal friendship.<\/p>\n

\"Handwritten<\/a>

Bunky’s Doodle, or the Progression Phases of Alcoholism by Dr. E. M. Jellinek, which was presented to Jane and George Strachan at the Summer School of Alcohol Studies on July 18, 1950, at Pearson College of Yale University in New Haven, CT. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

During that Summer School session, Jellinek introduced what would become one of his most significant contributions to the field: the concept of the progressive phases of alcoholism. In the classroom, he sketched a simple visual diagram, the famous \u201cBunky\u2019s Doodle<\/a>,\u201d to illustrate the course of the illness. Jellinek later gave a copy of this drawing to George and Jane Strachan, a small gesture that might suggest both generosity and recognition of Strachan as someone who would carry these ideas forward.<\/p>\n

The mutual trust deepened in the mid-1950s. As Jellinek\u2019s formal role with the World Health Organization was coming to an end, Strachan, working closely with H. David Archibald (another SSAS alumnus) in Ontario, played a central role in shaping the next phase of Jellinek\u2019s career. Letters preserved in the Strachan Collection document Strachan advocating for, organizing, and facilitating Jellinek\u2019s work in Canada between 1957 and 1961.<\/p>\n

During those years, Jellinek served as Chief Consultant to the Alcoholism Foundation of Alberta. He advised on program philosophy, evaluation, and education, reinforcing Strachan\u2019s belief that alcoholism should be addressed through integrated systems linking treatment, research, and public policy. Jellinek\u2019s international reputation helped legitimize these approaches at the governmental level in Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlcoholism is a public health problem and therefore a public responsibility.\u201d (Strachan, 1960. p. 3)<\/p>\n

Equally significant was Strachan\u2019s role as Jellinek\u2019s informal historian. In the 1960s, Strachan compiled detailed manuscripts, timelines, appendices, and correspondence tracing Jellinek\u2019s Canadian years. As board member of the Jellinek Memorial Fund<\/a>, he collected and preserved correspondence related to its early years. In the late 1980s, he consolidated many of these in a manuscript entitled E. M. Jellinek, Sc.D, M. Ed., M. D. (Hon.): His stay in Canada. <\/em>These materials, often including drafts and marked up copies, were not prepared for publication, but for documentation and accuracy. Today, they are among the most important primary sources for understanding the final chapter of Jellinek\u2019s career. Without Strachan\u2019s meticulous record-keeping, Jellinek\u2019s work in Canada would be fragmentary at best.<\/p>\n

From Jellinek to Canadian Alcohol Studies<\/h4>\n

Jellinek\u2019s intellectual influence on Strachan is clearly visible throughout Strachan\u2019s published work. Strachan embraced and expanded the disease concept of alcoholism, emphasizing symptom patterns, progression, and the importance of early intervention. His explanations of the phases of alcoholism closely reflected Jellinek\u2019s framework, while adapting it to Canadian clinical, community, and policy contexts.<\/p>\n

\"chart<\/a>

Phases of \u201cPhases of Alcoholism\u201d in George Strachan, Alcoholism: Treatable Illness (Orca Book Publishers, 1990), p. 108.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Through provincial programs, national conferences, and training initiatives, Strachan helped disseminate this approach across Canada. His work contributed to a broader shift away from punitive and moralistic responses toward coordinated health services, a shift that continues to shape contemporary addiction systems.<\/p>\n

The Strachan Collection at Rutgers<\/h4>\n

\"Two<\/a>The Strachan Collection came to Rutgers University Libraries through Strachan\u2019s long-standing relationship with the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies and its leadership. In 1989, Strachan donated some of his papers<\/a> to the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies Archives, working closely with Dr. Gail Milgram, then Director of Education and Training and the Summer School of Alcohol Studies. When the Center\u2019s Library and Archives closed in 2016, the collection was moved to Rutgers Libraries.<\/p>\n

The Strachan Collection features professional and personal correspondence, unpublished manuscripts, conference planning materials, and biographical research related to E.\u202fM. Jellinek. As he wrote in an introductory note to his Jellinek manuscripts:<\/p>\n

\u201cThese notes are prepared from memory, available correspondence, and discussions, and are intended to preserve the record accurately.\u201d
\n\u2014 J.\u202fGeorge Strachan, introductory note to Jellinek manuscripts<\/p>\n

The donation was deliberate and historically minded. Strachan understood that letters, memos, drafts, notes, and administrative records could preserve and highlight not just his own career but also international networks that shaped modern alcohol studies.<\/p>\n

Though modest in size, the collection is incredibly rich in content, reflecting decades of engagement with Yale, Rutgers, WHO, and Canadian provincial agencies. Digitized materials available in RUcore include Strachan\u2019s unpublished manuscript Dr. E. M. Jellinek Comes to Alberta, Canada,<\/em> a detailed chronological account of Jellinek\u2019s activities in Canada, extensive correspondence with E. M. Jellinek and with his daughter, Ruth Jellinek, conference documentation, bibliographic compilations, and letters reflecting Strachan\u2019s continued advocacy for the Center of Alcohol Studies after its move from Yale to Rutgers in 1962.<\/p>\n

Together, these materials make the small Strachan Collection a critical resource. By presenting how ideas moved from Yale classrooms to provincial policy and from individual mentorship to institutional change, they help researchers understand today how science and scholarship can be translated into practice and policy.<\/p>\n

Collection Highlights and Digitized Materials in RUcore<\/h4>\n

Digitized materials from the Strachan Collection available in RUcore<\/a>, the Rutgers University Community Repository, include:<\/p>\n