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Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia records
Notifications
Held at: University of Pennsylvania: Barbara Bates Center for the Study of The History of Nursing [Contact Us]Claire Fagin Hall, 418 Curie Boulevard, Floor 2U, Philadelphia, PA, 19104-4217
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the University of Pennsylvania: Barbara Bates Center for the Study of The History of Nursing. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
The Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia was established in 1861. The hospital began a training school for nurses two years later that was the first known chartered school for nurses in the United States. In early years, the school was affiliated with Blockley (Philadelphia General Hospital) and Pennsylvania Hospitals for the training of nurses. An Alumnae Association was organized in 1889. The hospital merged with the West Philadelphia Hospital for Women in 1929. After the merger of the two hospitals, the two Alumnae Associations also merged in 1931. The school was closed in February 1964, and the hospital was absorbed by the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in the same year. It officially closed in February 1965. The Nurses' Alumnae Association of the Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia donated the collection to the Mutter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia in 1976. The College transferred it to the Bates Center in 1991.
The collection came from three main sources: the Woman's Hospital, the School of Nursing, and the Nurses' Alumnae Association. As the hospital merged with the West Philadelphia Hospital for Women and Children in 1929, the collection also contains a file of the latter hospital. History accounts and administrative records (minutes, annual reports, etc.) are two important features of the collection. This collection covers a wide variety of records, including board minutes, hospital annual reports, correspondence, programs of all kinds of social activities, nurse certificates, books and publications, photographs, and artifacts.
Gift of Gretchen Worden at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 1992.
Organization
Subject
Place
Occupation
- Publisher
- University of Pennsylvania: Barbara Bates Center for the Study of The History of Nursing
- Finding Aid Author
- Finding aid prepared by Center staff, updated by Bethany Myers
- Sponsor
- This collection was processed with funds provided by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission as part of the Nursing History Processing and Cataloging Project.
- Access Restrictions
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Patient names may not be cited.
- Use Restrictions
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Copyright restrictions may apply. Please contact the Center with requests for copying and for authorization to publish, quote or reproduce the material.
Collection Inventory
The records of the hospital consist of bylaws, annual reports, history, documents of structure and function, correspondence, addresses and lecture notes by members and associates of the hospital, patient files, and publications.
This series consists of a historical account of the school, correspondence from 1937 to 1952, program brochures for various kinds of school activities, class yearbooks, and the proposal from Florence Stump for the preservation of the school's records.
Included in this series are constitution and bylaws, minutes books from 1895 to 1920, and some newsletters published by the alumnae association.
This small series includes an account of the hospital's history, a chronological outline of its training school, and annual reports from 1919 to 1923.
This series contains one photograph of WMCP collected by the Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia.
Most of the photographs collected here are of the Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia. Only a small portion is of the West Philadelphia Hospital for Women and Children. So far as subject matter is concerned, the photographs fall into three main categories: hospital buildings and interior facilities, class group photographs, and photographs of individuals or group of individuals on various occasions.
This series includes memorial plaques, nurse caps, a doll, instruments used by nurses, and pieces of bricks chipped from the hospital building in 1973.