The Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. MD Archives is pleased to share that we recently received a 2023 Digitization Project Grant from the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) to digitize a selection of material from the Mount Sinai Beth Israel collection. METRO’s Digitization Project Grant is designed to support digitization projects for METRO members to enhance the quality and accessibility of library and information resources in the metropolitan New York region. The selection for this grant will be the largest body of digitized materials related to Mount Sinai Beth Israel (MSBI) to date.
Packing is underway! Materials will be digitized by a vendor before being returned to the Archives for cataloging.
Selected material spans from across the history of MSBI. Beginning as a form of Jewish mutual aid to care for marginalized workers and their families living in tenements, the hospital grew to treat and research many of the most pressing issues of the time and the history of the hospital is deeply intertwined with that of the neighborhood. Over its 133-year history, this has included caring for the sick during the Influenza Epidemic of 1918; the development of the Methadone Maintenance Treatment Program in the 1960s, one of the first ever methadone clinics; being an early responder in treating and caring for patients during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s; and responding to the present COVID-19 pandemic. The Beth Israel records broadly document the history of the hospital, and the digitization of this material will allow Beth Israel to be more easily included in historical research related to the broader scope of healthcare in metropolitan New York. At the grant period’s end, more than 7,000 pages of material will be newly available through our catalog.
A big thank you to METRO for their support! You can learn more about past grant recipients and their projects here.
Authored by Stefana Breitwieser, Digital Archivist
As we look forward to a new year, I wanted to reflect on Mount Sinai’s remarkable historical milestones, honor our collective past, and celebrate those who make the Icahn School of Medicine and the Mount Sinai Health System what we are so proud of today.
2023 is a banner year as we mark the tenth anniversary of the Mount Sinai Health System’s creation. Among many pivotal moments described below, some highlights include trailblazing women, the evolution of psychological and substance use treatments, several otolaryngology milestones, and ways we have supported each other and our communities.
These milestones only highlight a selection of round number anniversaries.
We have so much to recognize in 2023, and the Arthur H. Aufses, Jr., MD Archives staff will be hard at work providing information and materials to support these celebrations!
1823 – 200 years ago
New York Eye and Ear Infirmary’s Dr. Rodgers travelled to Curaçao at the request of the island’s Rear Admiral Governor, to perform surgery in what might be called ophthalmology’s first international goodwill mission.
1863 – 160 years ago
During the New York City Draft Riots of 1863, one of the “bloodiest race riots in American history,” rioters besieged St. Luke’s Hospital for 48 hours, threatening to set the building on fire as it had received three injured policemen. Founder Reverend William Muhlenberg met an injured rioter brought to the front doors and was able to calm the protestors, who began to disperse.
In the geographic center of the Draft Riots, Jews’ Hospital in New York (later The Mount Sinai Hospital) was “the asylum for their dead and injured. An eventual result for the Hospital was its adoption of the nonsectarianism [sic] which has been its policy ever since.” In caring for riot victims, Jews’ Hospital staff witnessed the particular terror and brutal violence inflicted upon Black people. (see post for further information)
James Henry Roosevelt died, leaving his estate for “the reception and relief of sick and diseased persons, and its permanent endowment…” which then created Roosevelt Hospital.
1873 – 150 years ago
New York Eye and Ear Infirmary’s Throat Department was established, forerunner of the Head and Neck Service.
1898 – 125 years ago
During the Spanish-American War, the hospitals treated troops ill with typhoid and other epidemic diseases. Roosevelt Hospital’s Ward V was turned over to the U.S. Department of War. St. Luke’s Hospital set aside 30 beds. The Mount Sinai Hospital cared for 44.
An Act of the State Legislature of 1897 established a law to give The Mount Sinai Hospital 40 cents per day for each charity patient. Costs were then $1.33 per day, about $33 today.
1913 – 110 years ago
Sophie Rabinoff, MD, became the first female intern on the house staff at Beth Israel Hospital after “triumphing over thirty men in a competitive examination.” Initially told by the hospital that women are not eligible for appointment, the hospital later agreed to allow her to sit for the examination, at which she came in first place.
1923 – 100years ago
The Mount Sinai Hospital’s Medical Board recommended, and Board approved that “patients suffering from mental disturbance … as well as those suffering from the minor psychoses and from functional nervous trouble, may be admitted to the Neurological Service.”
Mount Sinai Hospital statistics for 1923: 12,104 patients treated; average census 505; length of stay 15.7 days; days of care 183,863; average daily cost of ward patient $5.64; 8,261 ER visits.
Leila C. Knox, MD, became the first female Attending Physician of any level at St. Luke’s Hospital. Hired in 1913 as an assistant and bacteriologist, she retired in 1948 as Pathologist, Director of Laboratories and Associate Attending Physician, and was recognized for her work as a tissue diagnostician.
1938 – 85 years ago
Mount Sinai Hospital’s Robert T. Frank, MD published an article The Formation of an Artificial Vagina Without Operation in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecologyon his non-surgical vaginoplasty technique to create or enlarge a vagina. He had been working on the subject for many years and had published in 1927 an article advocating for non-surgical methods with Dr. S.H. Geist.
1948 – 75 years ago
Beth Israel’s Obstetrics and Gynecology Departments are merged into a single department; Dr. Henry C. Falk was Director.
The residency program in Urology at Beth Israel was approved by the American Medical Association and the American Board of Urology.
The Mount Sinai Hospital welcomed its first residents in Psychiatry.
The Mount Sinai Hospital’s Special Medical Clinic, an outpatient diagnostic center, was established for lower income patients, paid half of consultation service fees.
1953 – 70 years ago
Woman’s Hospital officially merged with St. Luke’s becoming Woman’s Hospital Division of St. Luke’s Hospital. Established in 1855, Woman’s Hospital was the result of a meeting of thirty-five influential New York City women gathered by Dr. J. Marion Sims who conveyed New York’s need for a hospital to treat gynecological diseases.
1958 – 65 years ago
Doris L. Wethers, MD, began working at St. Luke’s Hospital. The first Black Attending Physician, she was Director of Pediatrics from 1974 until 1979, when she became the principal investigator on a major research project studying sickle cell anemia. She also served as chairwoman of an NIH panel that recommended routine testing for newborns regardless of race or ethnicity.
1973 – 50 years ago
St. Luke’s-Roosevelt’s Smithers Alcoholism Center and Rehabilitation Unit opened (now the Addiction Institute of New York). Funded by R. Brinkley Smithers, who pledged a $10-million gift for the treatment and rehabilitation of alcoholics in 1971, it was the largest single grant ever made by an individual or agency, including the Federal Government, to address alcoholism.
United States Senator Walter Mondale held hearings on child abuse at Roosevelt Hospital; the following year, Mondale initiated the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act.
Mount Sinai’s Department of Community Medicine received a grant to develop a primary care health services system for the children of East Harlem. The program later served as a model for other urban settings.
Phillips Beth Israel School of Nursing admitted its first male student.
Mount Sinai School of Medicine held its first classes in the Annenberg Building; the rest of the building opened slowly floor by floor after this.
1988 – 35 years ago
Beth Israel Medical Center establishes a 12-bed inpatient unit for AIDS care.
An AIDS unit at the Roosevelt Division site opened, providing 25 beds and augmented the St. Luke’s site AIDS unit which had 24 beds.
1993 – 30 years ago
A Letter of Agreement was signed formalizing the affiliation of Astoria General Hospital (predecessor of Mount Sinai Queens) and The Mount Sinai Medical Center.
Beth Israel created the Alfred and Gail Engelberg Department of Family Medicine and a residency program, the first in a Manhattan hospital, in conjunction with the Institute for Family Health (IFH), led by co-founder Dr. Neil Calman. IFH later affiliated with Mount Sinai and created the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the Icahn School of Medicine.
For the first time, the Mount Sinai School of Medicine graduated more women than men, also a first in New York State.
Women faculty members of Mount Sinai School of Medicine formed the Women Faculty group to address issues of concern to the including pay equity, discrimination, participation by women in internal decision-making bodies, limitations on career advancement, parenting and schedule flexibility issues, and the underlying sexism that informs these issues.
Beatrice and Samuel A. Seaver Center for Research and Treatment of Autism created in The Mount Sinai Hospital’s Department of Psychiatry.
1998 – 25 years ago
Center for Multi-Cultural and Community Affairs (CMCA) was established to increase underrepresented minority groups in medicine, adding to the diversity of the School and the Hospital, and to Mount Sinai’s effectiveness in serving the ethnically and racially diverse communities of East Harlem, Harlem, the Bronx, Queens, and the rest of New York City. Positioned as the interface for educational pipeline programs such as CEYE and SETH, Minority Affairs, institution-wide diversity initiatives, academic supports for medical students, and other initiatives within the School of Medicine, it was founded under the leadership of Gary Butts, MD in the Department of Medical Education.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama visited Beth Israel and participated in a conference at the Hyman-Newman Institute for Neurology and Neurosurgery called “Researching the Health Actions of Advanced Meditation: A Landmark East/West Medical Conference.” The conference was co-convened by Tibet House and Beth Israel Medical Center with the participation of Columbia University.
The James P. Mara Center for Lung Diseases was dedicated at Roosevelt Hospital. Gerard M. Turino, MD is the founding director; funded by $2 million donation from The Carson Family Charitable Trust.
Mount Sinai School of Medicine students organized the first memorial service for cadavers used in gross anatomy class.
Announcement of establishment of the Mount Sinai-NYU Medical Center and Health System.
Continuum Health Partners, Inc. was selected as new name for Beth Israel and St. Luke’s-Roosevelt parent company.
2003 – 20 years ago
Dr. Kenneth Davis, Chairman of Psychiatry, officially becomes Dean of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and the Board subsequently approved Davis as President.
Master’s program in Community Medicine changed from that of a Master of Science degree to a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree.
2008 – 15 years ago
The Brain Institute was created (now Friedman Brain Institute). Eric Nestler, MD, PhD became the first Director when he joined Mount Sinai to become the Chairman of the Fishberg Department of Neuroscience.
The Ear Institute at NYEE opened, which centralized the ear specialty services of New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, Beth Israel Medical Center, and the Children’s Hearing Institute.
2013 – 10 years ago
On September 30th, the approval and official creation of the Mount Sinai Health System was announced, and the Board was considered formed. Press release stated: “The Mount Sinai Health System is an integrated health system committed to providing distinguished care, conducting transformative research, and advancing biomedical education.”
Icahn School of Medicine announced the formation of a new group, Women in Science and Medicine.
2018 – 5 years ago
Boards of Trustees of South Nassau Communities Hospital and the Mount Sinai Health System formally approved an affiliation agreement.
Mount Sinai Heart opened a new ambulatory practice at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s. The Center for Clinical Cardiovascular Care at Mount Sinai Heart offered a suite of specialty services for comprehensive and integrated cardiovascular patient care, including Cardiology, Cardiac Surgery, and Vascular Surgery, in one location.
Additionally, the following departments, institutes, committees, centers, collaborations, and other initiatives have reached a landmark year:
30 years
Department of Emergency Medicine in the Mount Sinai School of Medicine (Academic Department)
25 years
Center for Multicultural and Community Affairs
Minimally Invasive Surgery Center (MISC)
Wound Care Center
Diabetes Center
20 years
Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder Center for Maternity Care
15 years
Brain Institute (now the Friedman Brain Institute)
Experimental Therapeutics Institute (now the Drug Discovery Institute)
Translational and Molecular Imaging Institute (now the BioMedical Engineering and Imaging Institute)
Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism Institute
Minority Health Research Committee
Statistical Advisory Service
Office of Clinical Research
Office for Women’s Careers
Patient-Oriented Research Training and Leadership (PORTAL) program
Ten years
OCD, Tic Disorders, and Tourette’s Disorder Team
Mount Sinai Health Network
East Harlem Health Outreach Project (EHHOP) Advisory Board
Center for Advanced Circuit Therapeutics (now the Nash Family Center)
Affiliation with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Authored by J.E. Molly Seegers with research contributions for Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West by Michala Biondi and for Mount Sinai Beth Israel by Stefana Breitwieser
The Aufses Archives staff has installed our latest exhibit in the lobby of the Annenberg Building. This season’s exhibit, Pediatric Developments, showcases the evolution of children’s medical care over the last two centuries in the histories of our Health System’s hospitals. This blog post focuses only on the Mount Sinai Hospital histories presented in the exhibit.
Appointment card, 1917
While the prevailing narrative is that the field of pediatrics slowly grew into a medical specialty in the early 20th century, the care provided at our hospitals was ahead of the curve with early establishment of wards and services tailored specifically to children. Our doctors and health care workers sought to treat not only the serious and often fatal childhood ailments (many now preventable through routine vaccination), but worked to improve living conditions, nutrition, education, psychology, and convalescence while contributing to the development of Pediatrics as a specialty.
150 years ago, Mount Sinai Hospital established an “Outdoor Dispensary” for patients who did not need to be admitted overnight. This was due to the advocacy of Dr. Abraham Jacobi, the progenitor of Pediatrics, who was a foundational force from his appointment in 1860 to the Jews’ Hospital as Attending Physician, until his death in 1919. Children had always been admitted to the Hospital, but they were placed on adult wards.
In 1875, a Children’s Department in the Mount Sinai Hospital Dispensary was organized with Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi serving as head of the service. Together, the Drs. Jacobi had published Infant Diet in 1874 and married several months later. Because the facilities for children in the Dispensary were not sufficient to care for the great number referred to the Hospital, an inpatient Pediatric ward was opened in 1879 with Dr. Abraham Jacobi as Chief. Remarkably this was the first inpatient pediatric department in New York City.
Excerpt from 1877 Annual Report
135 years ago in 1887, Dr. Sara Welt was the first woman to be appointed an Adjunct Pediatrician. She spent her whole career at Mount Sinai Hospital and remained closely affiliated until her death in 1943, at which time she bequeathed nearly $1 million to support the Pediatric Clinic and establish the Sara Welt Fellowship in Research Medicine, a loan fund for young physicians who needed financial assistance.
Mount Sinai Hospital Annual Report, 1895
Dr. Ira Wile, who joined the Mount Sinai Hospital Pediatric staff in 1904, developed an early interest in child psychiatry, behavioral and social problems of children, and child education. In 1919, he opened the first child guidance clinic in the United States. Named the Children’s Health Class, it became the first vehicle through which preventive medicine was integrated on an equal footing with the rest of the pediatric activities of the Hospital. He stated, prophetically, that “the attention of the clinic is directed chiefly to the periodic examination of children between infancy and school age. This is a period during which the health of poorer children is commonly neglected, and when physical and psychological mismanagement may readily implant the seeds of disease against which the Department of Health and other agencies subsequently struggle in vain.”
Children in Einstein Falk Pavilion, circa 1923
In 1889, Dr. Henry Koplik founded the first station for the distribution of sterilized milk in New York City at the Good Samaritan Dispensary in lower Manhattan. In 1896, Koplik described the diagnostic spots of measles in the buccal mucous membranes, which to this day bear the name “Koplik spots.” He was one of the first pediatricians to take an interest in bacteriology and conducted fundamental studies on diphtheria and pertussis organisms. In 1902, he assumed the coveted role of Attending Pediatrician at Mount Sinai Hospital. For the next 25 years, he served on the Medical Board, taught at the School of Nursing, and was a consulting expert on Pediatrics.
Diet Manual, 1939
In 1923, Mount Sinai Hospital invited Dr. Béla Schick, a pediatrician of renown in Europe, to come to Mount Sinai and serve as Pediatrician to the Hospital. In collaboration with Dr. Clemens von Pirquet, Schick had already conducted his groundbreaking work on antigen/antibody reactions, which laid the foundation for immunity and hypersensitivity. They introduced the term “allergy.” Schick also had done his pioneering studies on diphtheria, developing a skin test with toxin from diphtheria organisms. The “Schick Test” was the first of many skin tests used to determine whether a child was immune or susceptible. In his later years Dr. Schick also focused on infant and child nutrition, as evidenced by this Diet Manual from 1939.
Dr. Jean Pakter, pictured, spent five years at Mount Sinai Hospital, finishing her residency in 1939. An advocate for maternal and child health, she devoted her life to serving not only the City of New York, as Director of the Department of Health’s Bureau of Maternity Services and Family Planning from 1960 to 1982, but the nation as well. Her discipline for gathering and sharing statistics led to many noteworthy studies on prematurity, maternal and fetal mortality, abortion, sudden infant death syndrome, and promotion of breast feeding. Her Mount Sinai training of using scientific study and clinical expertise as a means of enacting social change led deservedly to numerous honors, awards, and citations, most notably in the Roe v. Wade decision.
Polio, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis… many of the serious and often fatal childhood ailments that were common in the nascent years of the field of Pediatrics are today prophylactically addressed through routine childhood vaccinations. One of the most notable vaccines was for polio, released in 1955. Developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, who interned at Mount Sinai Hospital from 1940-1942, the evaluation of the vaccine was conducted by pioneering Black scientists, Russell W. Brown and James H.M. Henderson at Tuskegee Institute, by creating the first HeLa cell factory.
This casebook entry from 1910 shows a child being treated for poliomyelitis, bronchopneumonia, and scoliosis. While this child was discharged with their conditions improved, the case book is filled with patients seen by Dr. Henry Koplik and Dr. Burrill Crohn (listed as Attending and House Staff above) who succumbed to illnesses that are preventable today.
Mount Sinai Hospital Ward Y, Pediatric staff with children, 1906
We welcome you to visit the exhibit in person to read about the histories of Mount Sinai Morningside, Mount Sinai West, and Mount Sinai Beth Israel.
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.
The Woman’s Hospital, often considered the first hospital in this country dedicated to treating the diseases of women, opened on May 4, 1855 in a house on Madison Avenue. It was founded by the currently controversial J. Marion Sims, MD, pictured right, in concert with a group of influential New York City women. Sims arrived in New York in 1853 from his home in Alabama, where he developed a procedure to close vesicovaginal fistulas. He relocated to New York in hopes of improving his own chronic health condition.
At first, Sims was welcomed into the medical community of New York and invited to demonstrate his fistula procedure. Unfortunately, once local doctors learned the procedure, they lost interest in him. Sims was unable to establish a strong practice or find a hospital that would offer him operating privileges.
The wife of one of Sims’ few medical friends in the city offered to gather a group of interested and influential women to discuss the state of women’s health care in the city. Thirty-Five women met on February 6, 1855, the outcome of which was the establishment of the Woman’s Hospital Association. The group would move to establish and direct a hospital devoted to the reception and cure of women suffering from “diseases peculiar to their sex.” The Association set up a Board of Managers, referred to as the ‘Board of Lady Managers,’ comprised of thirty-five women, to guide the Hospital. An Executive Committee of seven women, appointed by the Board of Managers, managed the day-to-day affairs of the institution.
In 1857 the Hospital was re-incorporated by the New York State Legislature as the Woman’s Hospital in the State of New York, and re-organized under an all-male Board of Governors. The twenty-seven Governors were responsible for the overall concerns of the Hospital, including filling vacancies of non-female staff, enacting the By-Laws and organizing the Medical Department. Women, however, were still very much in charge of running the Hospital. The former Board of Lady Managers became the Board of Lady Supervisors, and managed the operations of the Hospital, including the appointment of nurses and other female attendants. A smaller Board of Lady Managers remained responsible for handling the day-to-day business of the Hospital. By 1887, the Board of Governors invited four women from the Board of Lady Supervisors to join them. They found this integration “to be most acceptable in its results,” and soon after the Board of Governors was reorganized and evenly divided between men and women.
As mentioned above, the first Woman’s Hospital was a rented four-story brownstone at 83 Madison Avenue, off 29th Street, pictured left. The brownstone held forty beds and welcomed its first patient in May of 1855. The response to the Hospital’s opening was so great, by fall of 1855 that another surgeon, Thomas Addis Emmet, joined Dr. Sims as the second surgeon on staff. It wasn’t long before the Woman’s Hospital Board was seeking larger accommodations to meet patient demand.
In 1858, approving the petition of Dr. Sims, the City of New York offered the entire block bounded by 49th and 50th Streets between Lexington and Park Avenues as a site for a new, larger hospital. Originally a Potter’s Field, or Stranger’s Burial Place, the plot was filled with coffins; more than 35,000 of them had to be removed. The first building, the Wetmore Pavilion, opened in 1867 and held seventy-five beds. A matching building, the Baldwin Pavilion, added in 1877, doubled that number. A Mr. Baldwin, who wished to remain anonymous, funded the construction of the second pavilion, contributing $84,000, provided the Association raised the balance of $50,000 to complete it.
Over the years, the Board recognized the need to develop additional services. A post-graduate school of nursing admitted its first class in 1888. The establishment of a hospital pharmacy in 1881, a maternity ward in 1910, and a social services department in 1912 are examples of the additional services made available at Woman’s Hospital.
The 49th Street location proved to be an unsatisfactory one, as the ground tended to be wet, and the basement and ground floors had leaks and dampness. In 1902, all hospital services, except the Out-Patient Clinic, were suspended and the facility was sold. (On a side note, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel opened on this same plot in 1931.)
Hospital services resumed in 1906, when a newly constructed Woman’s Hospital opened on West 109th Street, between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues, pictured left. The hospital functioned here until 1965, when it moved just a few blocks north into a newly constructed building on the St. Luke’s Hospital campus at Amsterdam Avenue at 114th Street, pictured right.
In 1952, realizing that their histories and ideals were parallel, and that it would be beneficial to each to consolidate their resources, which would also strengthen medical services offered to the broader Morningside Heights community, the Board of Trustees of St. Luke’s and Woman’s Hospitals decided to merge.
On January 1, 1953, the Woman’s Hospital became the Woman’s Hospital Division of St. Luke’s Hospital. The Board added “Center” to the Hospital’s name in the mid-1960s to acknowledge distinctions between the different Hospitals. The Woman’s Hospital Board of Governors merged with the corresponding board at St. Luke’s, but the Ladies Associate Board, which handled day-to-day business of the Hospital, continued to meet for some years.
Architect’s drawing of Woman’s Hospital Division
In 1979, St. Luke’s Hospital Center merged with the Roosevelt Hospital forming St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center. In 1997, the Hospital Center joined with Beth Israel Medical Center under the Continuum Health Partners banner. In 2013, the Continuum Health Partners merged with Mount Sinai Medical Center forming the Mount Sinai Heath System. The Woman’s Hospital Division on St. Luke’s Hospital campus continued as such for a few years, but eventually duplicated services throughout the combined System. Services re-located, former names were changed, and Woman’s Hospital was consigned to history.
The Woman’s Hospital finding aid is available online here.
The Woman’s Hospital, often considered the first hospital in this country dedicated to treating the diseases of women, 
As mentioned above, the first Woman’s Hospital was a rented four-story brownstone at 83 Madison Avenue, off 29th Street, pictured left. The brownstone held forty beds and welcomed its first patient in May of 1855. The response to the Hospital’s opening was so great, by fall of 1855 that another surgeon, 
Over the years, the Board recognized the need to develop additional services. A post-graduate school of nursing admitted its first class in 1888. The establishment of a hospital pharmacy in 1881, a maternity ward in 1910, and a social services department in 1912 are examples of the additional services made available at Woman’s Hospital.
Hospital services resumed in 1906, when a newly constructed Woman’s Hospital opened on West 109th Street, between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues, pictured left. The hospital functioned here until 1965, when it moved just a few blocks north into a newly constructed building on the 