601 West Lombard Street
Baltimore MD 21201-1512
Reference: 410-706-7996
Circulation: 410-706-7928
The Kendall Collection was donated in 2000 by Florence Kendall, professor of physical therapy in the School of Medicine. The collection contains manuscript materials and historic titles related to physical therapy, including several editions of Florence and her husband, Henry O. Kendall's seminal work, Muscles: Testing & Function, and the companion volume Posture and Pain. The books in this collection date from the early twentieth to the twenty-first centuries.
In addition to the books, the collection contains manuscript materials centering around Kendall's career in physical therapy and service on the Maryland State Board of Physical Therapy Examiners. These materials are currently unprocessed.
The Kendall Collection is open for research but closed to donations or transfers.
Related Links and Collections:
To search the collection use the Library Catalog.
Some manuscript materials are digitized in the Kendall Digital Collection.
A more detailed collection description is available in the Digital Archive.
Florence Peterson Kendall was born Florence May Peterson in Warman, Minn., on May 5, 1910 to Charles August and Mathilda Kruse Peterson. Kendall earned her Bachelor of Science degree in physical therapy from the University of Minnesota in 1930. In 1931, she entered the Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington D.C. to continue her studies. After the Walter Reed Hospital, she took a position at the Children's Hospital in Baltimore, where she met Henry Otis Kendall, whom she later married.
After their marriage, the Kendalls continued to treat polio patients at the Children's Hospital and opened a private physical therapy practice. Florence Kendall was instrumental in drafting the 1947 bill that established physical therapy practice in Maryland. In 1949, the Kendalls published their first edition of Muscle: Testing and Function, which has become the seminal work for musculoskeletal assessment. In 1952, the Kendalls published the companion work, Posture and Pain.
In addition to their private practice and service at the Children's Hospital, the Kendalls held professorships at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Florence Kendall also helped to establish the American Physical Therapy Association of Maryland, serving as president of the organization from 1939 to 1941, and again from 1957 to 1959. She was also active in the Maryland State Board of Physical Therapy Examiners, serving as secretary and board member.
After Henry Otis Kendall's death in 1979, Florence Kendall continued to work in the physical therapy field. Florence P. Kendall passed in 2006.
Additional Biographical Links:
A more extensive biography on Florence Kendall is available in the Digital Archive.