U.S. Mental Health Mission to the U.S.S.R.

The bulk of the collection consists of speeches, publications, notes, minutes and memoranda. Most of the material reflects Gorman's career after he became involved in publicity and lobbying in the 1950s. With the notable exception of the material concerning his best-selling 1956 book Every Other Bed (located in the Publications series), there is little from Gorman's career as a reporter.

Gorman's work for mental health is reflected in the collection's showpiece, an extensive array of speeches and testimony by Gorman, most of it dating from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s. The file also contains speeches Gorman wrote for other people, such as Presidents Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Senator Lister Hill and Dr. Michael DeBakey.

Also of note are files Gorman accumulated in the 1970s and 1980s as executive director of Citizens for the Treatment of High Blood Pressure (most of them relating to the organization's participation in the National Institutes of Health's National High Blood Pressure Education Program), in the 1980s as executive director of the National Initiative for Glaucoma Control and in 1967 as a delegate to the first U.S. Mental Health Mission to the Soviet Union (located in the Subject series).

The Gorman Papers also contain a good collection of photographs, both of Gorman and of other major political figures of the late twentieth century (prominent are Lister Hill and Mary Lasker). Overall, the papers contain little correspondence, though some with Senator Lister Hill and Mary Lasker can be found throughout the collection. The Gorman Papers will be of interest to those researching the politics of health in the United States in the mid to late twentieth century.

Two artifacts found in the collection have been pulled and cataloged separately. They are a pen used by President John F. Kennedy to sign the Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Construction Act of 1963 and a pen used by President Lyndon B. Johnson to sign the Community Mental Health Center Staffing Act of 1965.