One of the collections held by the Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. MD Archives is the Roosevelt Hospital School of Nursing records (1896-1974). A gift to the collection is a scrapbook from alumna Evelyn I.V. Howard, class of 1908, who captured images of her fellow classmates and house staff physicians during her years in training there. Included among her friends were images of Nina Gage, who went on to join a missionary outreach in Changsha, Hunan Province in China in 1909. Gage worked in the hospital created by the team, and established a nursing school for both men and women. The scrapbook includes images of the hospital founded by the team as well as the nursing school students’ classes and hospital scenes sent to Howard by Gage. They illustrate an important time in the development of China’s medical history.
This is the cover of the Howard scrapbook, which is wrapped in the blue and white striped cloth of the Roosevelt Hospital School of Nursing student uniform. The Roosevelt family coat of arms and motto is pictured at the bottom right. The Roosevelt family coat of arms, as depicted here in blue and black, includes a rosebud bearing three roses with a crest consisting of a helmet and three ostrich plumes. The family motto in the ribbon below the crest reads “Qui plantavit curabit” which means “The one who planted it will take care of it” or “He who will plant will cultivate.”
NURSING IN CHINA
Nursing, as a profession, was almost unheard of in pre-20th century China. Traditional Chinese healers diagnosed patients by observing various parts of the body – the tongue, the pulse (taken in both arms), and asking extensive questions. They then prescribed herbal remedies, massage, acupuncture or other methods to balance yin and yang – the two great opposing and complimentary forces in nature – to bring the body back into balance. (Forgive the simplification; this is a very basic explanation of Chinese medicine.) The family themselves, or their servants, in wealthy households, treated the patient at home – hospitals were also introduced by western missionaries – following the prescribed treatment. It is significant to note that most of the care givers were men.
Bathing a hospital patient
Men’s medical ward decorated for Christmas. The man in black is a probationer (nursing student in training).
Feeding a helpless patient in Yali Hospital.
THE YALE-IN-CHINA MISSION
Starting in the 1880s, western missionaries brought modern medical methods to various large cities of China where they established missions’ projects. One team, organized by Yale University’s Christian Missions Society, was the Yale-in-China mission. The team consisted of members of the Yale class of 1898 and their families. Additionally, Nina Gage, a 1908 graduate of the Roosevelt Hospital School of Nursing, and sister to team-member Brownall Gage, joined them in 1909 to work as a nurse in the hospital/clinic and to help establish a modern nursing program.
One of the team members, working with experienced missionaries from a northern project, arrived in 1902 to visit possible cities to establish the work. He then reported back to the Yale Missions Society board and the project team about the cities he visited for their consideration. Eventually they chose the city of Changsha, Hunan Province in southern China to establish the Yale-in-China Mission. Selected for its large size, Changsha was considered extremely clean and well built, according to the more experienced missionaries. Changsha’s alleys were paved with granite and it had a good sewage system, compared to other cities. Other missionaries had high opinions of the people there, citing them as born leaders who were very independent and influential in Chinese culture and life.
Map of southern China, highlighting Hunan province and the city of Changsha (this image and the following two are courtesy of Nancy E. Chapman)
In 1904, the team rented two buildings near the center of the city that were large enough to support their plans to establish a prep school and college, a medical school and hospital/clinic, as well as a nurse training school. One building was large enough to carve out several classrooms and dormitory space for students and housing for the team, while the other building served as a hospital/clinic.
Left: The Yale Mission’s early medical work was led by Edward Hume, M.D., Yale class of 1897. Hume (right) is pictured with two Chinese colleagues at the door of the mission’s first clinic and hospital, housed in a converted inn in the crowded center of Changsha.
NINA D. GAGE
Nina Diadamia Gage was born in 1883 in Brooklyn, and she and her siblings grew up in and around New York City. She attended Wellesley College, where, like her older brother, she was an active member of the missionary committee. After graduating, Gage entered Roosevelt Hospital’s Training School for Nursing, which had opened in 1896. (Roosevelt Hospital was renamed Mount Sinai West in 2015.)
Nina Gage as a student nurse, relaxing on a building rooftop, at Roosevelt Hospital’s School of Nursing, circa 1907
At that time, student nurses were trained at the bedside by the senior student nurses, as graduate professional nurses were few in those years. The junior nurses, who served as floor staff, were taught to take vitals, change bandages, feed and clean patients, note changes in the patient’s condition to report to the attending physician during rounds, and keep the ward itself clean. Weekly lectures by the staff physicians supplemented and expanded the bedside training. Monthly lectures considered a different area of medical care. One would assume these lessons were repeated by Gage to her Chinese students.
After graduating in 1908, Gage was employed as a night nurse while making the necessary arrangements to move to Changsha in 1909 to join her brother and the Yale team. She thought it was important to learn the language, and took that first year to study it while she worked in the “Yali Hospital” (as it was called) clinic and assisted the doctors in surgery and planning the establishment of the nursing school, which opened in 1913.
This image captures nurse Gage in preparations for surgery at the Yali Hospital, undated (note: faded original image)
THE HSIANG-YA NURSING SCHOOL
Since nursing as a profession was new in China, Gage had the interesting – and daunting – privilege to create the Chinese name for it. She selected “Scholars to Watch and Guard” or more briefly, “Guard Scholars” – to indicate nurses.
Advertising posters were hung around the city to announce the opening of the school, inviting “both boys and girls to be admitted for training in a new profession” (Hume, E., p. 168). The entrance requirements for the “Scholars to Watch and Guard” training were two years of middle school and passing the school’s entrance examinations in Chinese and arithmetic. Parental consent and the payment of school fees were also required. On examination day, twenty girls and forty boys arrived to take the tests. A few applicants backed out, intimidated by the exam questions, but in the end, five girls and seven boys became the first class of trainees.
Nurses and probationary students in the Men’s Nursing School division, undated
Female students, in particular, had problems gaining entrance, as at that time, girls were prepared from a young age for marriage and lived very secluded lives, neither meeting nor socializing with boys outside of immediate family. However, once they demonstrated success in passing the entrance exams, doubtful parents were content to allow them to continue and in the end were very proud to have graduate ‘Guard Scholar’ daughters in crisp white uniforms, ready to serve their communities in such a positive way.
The images above and below are of bandaging class practice. Men and women were taught separately, out of respect for Chinese culture, which kept women apart from men who were outside of their immediate family. Likewise, only men worked in the men’s ward and the women in the women’s wards, at least until the 1930s, by which time women dominated the nursing field in China.
Initially the nursing school and hospital were simply called the Yali School, but in the early teens, both were renamed “Hsiang-Ya” – “Hsiang” indicating “Hunan” and “Ya” indicating “Yale,” highlighting the partnership of Hunanese teachers and students with the Yale teachers and administrators.
Yale School front courtyard, 1909 (note: faded original image)
Preparing salt solutions, 1915
Preparing and sorting of supplies, 1915
In 1927, due to the on-going political turmoil, all foreigners were expelled from China, the Yale-in-China Mission closed, and the team returned to the United States. By 1929, however, the Yale-in-China work resumed, but under Chinese leadership and direction. The hospital and schools of the Yale Mission continue to exist to this day, though they have been absorbed into larger university settings. The relationship between Yale University and China also continues to this day as Yale-China (雅礼协会), based in New Haven, CT, which “bridges the United States and China through collaborative partnerships in education, healthcare, and the arts” (The Yale-China mission statement, from their webpage).
Most of the photographs in Ms. Howard’s scrapbook have short captions on the back, usually with dates. This one reads: “During the Tuchun’s war – bringing in wounded,” unfortunately it is undated.
Gage is among the handful of notable women who brought modern professional nursing to China. In additional to teaching and working in the hospital, Gage helped found the Nurses’ Association of China (NAC) in 1909, signifying the start of a professional nursing movement in the country. The founding members were mostly western missionary nurses who came together to organize, but they were soon joined by Chinese colleagues. By 1915, China established an examination system for the professional certification of nurses, followed by other advances to promote nursing education across the Asian continent.
Nina Gage taking a meal in her home, circa 1915
In 1912, Gage was elected as the first president of the NAC, serving a two-year term. She went on to serve as the chairperson of its education committee. After a brief return to the U.S. during WWI, where she taught wartime nursing at Vassar, Gage returned to Chine and was appointed Dean of the Hsiang-Ya Nursing School, as it was renamed.
Superintendent Gage and the senior class of 1915
GAGE’S POST-CHINA LIFE
Upon returning to the United States in 1927, Nina Gage continued to work in nursing and was active in its support organizations. From 1925 to 1929, she served as president of the International Council of Nurses, representing China. She was executive secretary of the National League for Nursing Education from 1928 to 1931. In 1930, during her term as president of the Roosevelt Hospital School of Nursing Alumnae Association, she started The Roosevelt Hospital School of Nursing Alumnae Association Bulletin, later renamed The Roosevelt Review, which published news about alumnae activities but also included articles on developments in nursing practice and medicine in general. Throughout her working years, Gage remained active in the National Nursing Association and the American Nurses Association. Gage also published several articles on nursing in China for The American Journal of Nursing and as well as authoring two books: A General History of Nursing in 1933 and Communicable Diseases in 1940.
In the U.S. Gage continued working as a teacher to the next generation of professionals. In 1927 she became educational director and director of the nursing department of the Willard Parker Hospital in NYC. In 1931, the historically Black Hampton Institute (Hampton, VA) appointed Gage as director of its new nursing school. She taught at the Jersey City Medical Center Nursing School during the 1934-1935 school year and then went to the Newport Hospital (Newport, R.I.) as director of its school of nursing from 1935 to 1943. In 1949, Newport Hospital’s Gage Hall was named in her honor. From 1943 until her retirement in 1945, she was the Director of Nursing at the Protestant Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. She died on October 18, 1946, at the age of 63.
Yuhong, Jiang. “Shaping modern nursing development in China before 1949.” International Journal of Nursing Science. 2016 Dec 29; 4 (1): 19-23. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31406712/
The Aufses Archives is happy to announce that it has received materials from William G. Hamilton, MD, donated by his wife, Linda Hamilton, PhD. William Hamilton was an orthopedic surgeon working with the Kathryn and Gilbert Miller Health Care Institute for Performing Artists at the Roosevelt Division of St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center. The Institute began in 1985 and served the performing artist community until the mid-2000s. He also was the first in-house doctor for the New York City Ballet. Dr. Hamilton treated many prima ballerinas as well as many major league athletes who sustained foot and ankle injuries. This collection contains the first materials we have which document the work of the Miller Institute.
Hamilton’s whole career collection is huge, and includes dozens of photographs of various clientele, as well as ballet posters and team jerseys from pro basketball and baseball players, all in large frames and autographed by cast or team members. The collection also includes his many awards, certificates, and citations, instructional videos, PowerPoint presentations, and many sets of slides used in teaching and lectures on his foot and ankle repair techniques.
The Aufses Archives chose materials that were most germane to Dr. Hamilton’s work at the Roosevelt Division. It includes articles, including an unpublished article that discusses using the marsupial meniscus of the ankle in dancers; his teaching videos and PowerPoint presentations; various hospital ID cards; his residency training diploma; several photographic tribute books honoring him, as well as several photographs of him with well-known dancers who were patients. My personal favorite item is a model of the bones of the foot in a delicate pink ballet slipper.
The remainder of Dr. Hamilton’s collection was distributed to two other institutions. The New York City Ballet claimed the large number of dancer photographs and the rest of the collection was acquired by the NYU Health Sciences Library Medical Archives.
Additional information on this collection will be available in our catalog by early 2024.
In years past, as the weather warmed up, the staff and alumni looked forward to renewing old acquaintances and socializing with colleagues from across the hospital’s departments. This blog post will highlight the three main traditions of spring, mention their roots and how they evolved.
The first event was the annual alumni dinner, which gathered all the graduates of the Resident training program together to enjoy a good meal, good conversation, and informative lectures. The Society of the Alumni of St. Luke’s Hospital of New York City was established in 1891 and was formed with the intent to “foster collegiality and scientific discourse and to honor accomplished colleagues at an annual dinner.”
The image above, taken from the News of St. Luke’s newsletter, depicts the dinner held on April 30, 1965, at the New York Hilton Hotel.
This photo memorializes the St. Luke’s 1973 alumni dinner at the 7th Regiment Armory.
In 1896, Roosevelt Hospital ‘ex-interns’ met at the hospital to plan the twenty-fifth anniversary of its opening and organize The Roosevelt Hospital Alumni Association. Its stated purpose was “…maintaining loyalty to the institution and promoting its broader usefulness.” Unfortunately, the Archives does not have any photos documenting their celebrations over the years.
Every June during the 1960s, St. Luke’s Attendings invited the Residents to join them for a “Field Day.” Held at New Jersey’s Englewood Country Club, the usual barriers of position, age, and authority were ignored during an afternoon of hotly contested athletic events (softball, golf, and tennis, swimming, etc.), followed by a casual dinner and evening entertainment.
Evening offerings were often films created by actor/director wannabes, Drs. Harry Roselle and Theodore Robbins and the various colleagues they could round up to help. One year’s offering was a Dr- Kildare-meets-Dracula-at-St.-Luke’s horror flick titled, “Anemia of Uncertain Origin.” Another was a spy thriller á la a 1960s TV comedy favorite titled ‘Get Smart,’ called “Aardvark,” in which Secret Agent 95.6, battled Aardvark, a Fu Manchu-type enemy who developed an infamous blood sludging device.
Each year’s outing was documented with a panoramic photograph of attendees. These photos, usually between four and six feet long and about ten inches high, have proven to be a challenge to store in the Archives. About ten of them arrived, each individually tightly rolled. They required re-humidifying in a makeshift humidification tank in order to relax the paper enough to allow them to be flattened for storage. They are available for viewing for those who wish to walk down memory lane.
In case you, dear reader, are curious, the Field Day photo was cut in two in order to be printed in the former newsletter, The News of St. Luke’s. The images used here were scanned from the newsletter because the originals are too large to fit on current in-house scanners. It may also be of interest to note that the dinner photographs, whose originals are two to three feet long and eight to ten inches high, were taken with a fish-eye camera, which has curved lenses to allow the whole room to fit into one image. The author is not sure what equipment was used to capture the huge Field Day images.
Unfortunately, one year in the early 1970s the event was cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances, and it was not picked up again in the following years.
The final big spring event for many years was the St. Luke’s Hospital School of Nursing graduation ceremonies held at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, just south of the Hospital. Nursing students would line up at the Hospital and proceed down Amsterdam Avenue, marching up the front steps to enter the Cathedral and take seats at the front while their families observed the ceremonies from behind them. At the end of the ceremonies the graduating class would pose for a group photo on the Cathedral steps.
The above images, taken from the News of St. Luke’s newsletter, are of the graduating class of 1955; the image below shows the graduating class of 1974, the year the St. Luke’s Hospital School of Nursing program closed its doors and merged with the Columbia University School of Nursing Bachelor of Science program.
Roosevelt Hospital also had a School of Nursing, founded in 1896. At first, students were accepted on a rolling admission any time, and as students successfully completed the required coursework, diplomas, graduate caps and pins were awarded with little fanfare in the Administration Building. By the 1920s a formal cycle of classes developed, and graduation was set at a fixed time of year. At first, ceremonies were held in the Syms Operating Room, and later, as the number of students grew, the ceremony was moved to a hotel ballroom. Unfortunately, the Archives does not have images from the Roosevelt Hospital School of Nursing graduations, and like St. Luke’s, the hospital-based school also closed its doors in 1974, but the Alumni Association is still fairly active and enthusiastic about staying connected.
Since the 2013 merger of the Continuum Health Partners into the Mount Sinai Health System, medical students working in the System’s hospitals have earned their MDs from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Newer staff and students may be unaware that prior to 2013, the Continuum Health Partners, made up of St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, Beth Israel Medical Center and the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, now all a part of Mount Sinai’s System, played host to medical students attached to a different medical school. In fact, from very early days, Roosevelt Hospital and her sister institution, St. Luke’s Hospital, were associated with Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons (P&S), though Roosevelt’s ties are closer. How did this come to be exactly?
In 1885, P&S was located on East 23rd Street and Fourth Avenue, now known as Park Avenue South. William H. Vanderbilt, an American businessman and philanthropist, died in December of that year. He left a legacy of $300K and a plot of land on West 59th Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues to P&S for the express purpose of building a new medical school, the largest donation to a medical school up to that time.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons on West 59th Street across from Roosevelt Hospital. You can see the Hospital’s Administrative Building port-cohere front column to the left in the image. (Photo source: Archives & Special Collections, Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
It just so happened that the Roosevelt Hospital, which had opened its doors several years earlier, was across the street from the new building. Of the twelve physicians chosen to be the first clinical staff of the Hospital, almost all of them were P&S alumni and held teaching positions there. It probably was no surprise to the staff to see medical students from P&S coming over to observe their professors’ clinics and surgeries.
By 1914, P&S students received bedside teaching on patient wards; by 1936, fourth-year students were allowed into the operating rooms. In 1928, the College of Physicians and Surgeons moved to the newly constructed medical center campus at 168 Street in Washington Heights, but their students continued to travel to clinical training at Roosevelt, and a number of other hospitals in the area.
Surprisingly, in over sixty years of P&S student training at Roosevelt Hospital, there was only a ‘handshake’ agreement between the medical school and the Hospital. However, by the late 1940s, there was discussion on the subject, and on October 24, 1951, the Board of Trustees put into place a formal affiliation with Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, allowing the students of the medical school to work at the hospital as part of their formal training. The agreement was signed by all parties on May 12, 1952. In 1971 it was renewed and expanded.
Medical studies aren’t the only tie between Columbia and Roosevelt Hospital, however. In 1964, an affiliation agreement between Columbia University’s School of Dental and Oral Surgery and Roosevelt Hospital was signed allowing dental students in to the surgery. That same year a two-year program in anesthesiology for the registered nurses was established at Roosevelt to help end the shortage of practitioners in this area. This program moved to Columbia University’s School of Nursing after the Roosevelt Hospital’s School of Nursing closed, and the loose ends of Roosevelt’s program merged with Columbia’s. The CRNA program – Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists – continues there to this day.
With the 2013 merger of St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center into the Mount Sinai Health System, ties to Columbia University’s programs may have come undone, but the history and influence of each institution upon the other remains, in the drive to produce outstanding medical professionals.
