What’s online?
The entire collection is scanned and online.
What’s in the entire collection?
The Szeming Sze Papers contain a variety of documents relating to the creation of the World Health Organization (WHO). These include correspondence, Dr. Sze's personal diaries from the 1945 UN Conference and 1946 International Health Organization conference, official conference documents, some documents with handwritten notes by Dr. Sze and his colleagues, photographs, and one VHS tape. There are also copies of Dr. Sze's personal memoirs, as well as publications from the different conferences. This collection contains some newspaper clippings on the formation of the United Nations and the health organization, as well as a later interview with Dr. Sze about this process.
Dr. Sze's diaries are dated from 1945-1947, and may reference other documents in the collection such as correspondence. The photographs within the collection feature different medical figures, as well as moments from different meetings and conferences. There are photographic negatives also included. The collection contains materials dated from 1945 to 1988, though the bulk of it is from 1945-1947.
About Szeming Sze
Dr. Szeming Sze (Chinese: 施思明, Pinyin: Siming Shi) was born in what is now Tianjin, China, on April 5, 1908. His father, Dr. Alfred Sao-ke Sze (施肇基, Zhaoji Shi), was China's ambassador to Great Britain at the time, and the younger Sze spent much of his childhood in London. Sze was educated at Cambridge, and began working at St. Thomas Hospital in London. His work at this location, in a less affluent area of the city, persuaded Sze to focus on medicine as a form of public service instead of a way to make money. Sze returned to China in 1934, though he traveled to the United States often.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Sze remained in the U.S. as part of the country’s Lend-Lease agreement with China. He began working with the diplomat T.V. Soong, and accompanied him to the 1945 United Nations Conference on International Organization, which would later become the United Nations, as part of the Chinese delegation. At the conference, Sze was one of only three medical professionals in attendance, along with Dr. Karl Evang of Norway and Dr. Geraldo de Paula Souza of the Brazilian delegation. Over a lunch discussion, the three men agreed that there should be an international health organization established with the United Nations. When they tried to gain support and pass a resolution for such an organization, they met with little success. However, a conversation with Alger Hiss, the secretary-general of the conference, pointed Sze in the right direction and they were able to pass a declaration calling for the creation of an international conference on health.
Sze stayed involved with this project and saw both the conference and the organization, called the World Health Organization, come to fruition. In a surprising turn of events, however, Sze never actually worked for the WHO, having accepted a position with the United Nations. In 1954 he was appointed medical director of the United Nations, and remained in that role until his retirement in the 1960s. After his retirement, Sze used his time to travel and also completed his memoirs, among other things. He died in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1998 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.
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