Today’s post is by contributing editor David Korostyshevsky, a history PhD candidate at the University of Minnesota.
It was a cloudy, rainy, late-March week in West Lafayette, Indiana when I first encountered Purdue University’s Psychoactive Substances Research Collection (PSRC). Maintained by the university library’s Archives and Special Collections, the PSRC offers the papers of important figures in American psychedelic research, from American LSD studies during the 1960s to the resurgence of international medical and scientific research about psychedelic substances during the 1990s. The collection also boasts an incredible shelf list of psychedelic science literature dating to the 1950s, including books, periodicals, and newsletters.