Free Hospital for Women records

The Free Hospital for Women (FHW) was founded in 1875 by Dr. William Henry Baker. Dr. Baker drew his inspiration for a hospital dedicated to teaching, researching, and caring for the diseases of women while serving as a surgical resident under Dr. James Marion Sims, founder of the New York Woman’s Hospital. With the support of clerics and philanthropists, as well as the donated services of the surgeons and other physicians, he established a hospital providing free medical care to poor women. The first patient, admitted to the 5 bed facility installed in rented rooms at 16 East Springfield Street in Boston, Massachusetts on November 2, 1875, marked the beginning of a century of success and rapid expansion for the Free Hospital for Women. In 1877, a larger space was found at 60 East Springfield Street to handle increasing requests for treatment. By 1882, the new 8 bed facility had also become inadequate. The adjoining property at number 58 East Springfield was leased allowing expansion to 20 beds and the establishment of one of the nation’s first cancer wards. The Board of Lady Visitors raised the funds for medical supplies as well as other essentials in order for the hospital to maintain its free medical services.

The institution quickly outgrew the rented Springfield street locations, however the funding, design, and construction of a new facility in Brookline Massachusetts took the next 13 years, opening in January of 1895. In the same year, a training school for gynecological nurses was established under the directorship of Superintendent of Nurses, Hannah Jane Ewin. Thanks to a large endowment in 1897, the Free Hospital for Women, always active in cancer treatment, became one of the leading institutions in that field. In 1900, the out-patient department, still housed on Springfield Street moved to 633 Massachusetts Avenue. In 1902, Dr. William P. Graves was employed to work at the hospital’s first pathology laboratory and by 1908 had replaced the retiring Dr. Baker as head of the hospital.

In 1918, at the request of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the hospital ceased normal operations and devoted all its resources to the care of victims of the Spanish influenza epidemic. That, and a shortage of medical personnel because of World War I, caused the closure of the Nurses School at the FHW. After resuming normal operations in 1919, the idea of admitting paying patients in addition to those receiving free care was approved and a new wing for paying patients was finished in 1922. The President of the Corporation, George R. Fearing, donated the funds to erect a modern research laboratory in 1928 and pioneering research in diseases of the female reproduction organs was conducted at the Fearing Laboratory by Dr. George Van Siclen Smith and Dr. Olive Watkins Smith for the next 50 years. In 1944, Dr. John Charles Rock, known for the development of the birth control pill, founded the Rock Reproductive Study Center at the Free Hospital for Women to study infertility and along with Harvard scientist Miriam F. Menkin, achieved the first fertilization of a human ovum in a test tube.

The Free Hospital for Women’s gynecology training program and the Boston Lying-in Hospital’s obstetrics training program, informally associated since 1922, were formally united in 1951. In 1966, the Free Hospital for Women merged with the Boston Lying-in Hospital in cooperation with Harvard Medical School, to form the Boston Hospital for Women (BHW). In 1975, BHW merged with the Peter Bent Brigham and the Robert B. Brigham Hospitals forming the Affiliated Hospitals Center. In 1980, at the time of the opening of a new state-of-the-art facility, the Affiliated Hospitals Center became known as the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a teaching affiliate of the Harvard Medical School.