Tim Hayes, M.P.A, M.L.I.S. is the Circulation Supervisor at the Levy Library. As part of completing his Master of Library and Information Sciences degree earlier this year, he interned with the Aufses Archives and processed the Henry Dazian Estate and Dazian Foundation for Medical Research Records. In this post, Tim shares what he was able to find in that collection as it relates to the naming of the Dazian Pavilion. See this link for Part 1 of this blog post.
Coming into this project, I knew there was a question that hadn’t been answered yet (when was the Dazian Pavilion at Beth Israel Hospital named?), and a collection of materials corresponding to the presumed namesake (Henry Dazian Estate and Dazian Foundation for Medical Research records).
Henry Dazian set the majority of his estate, under the guidance of his executor, Emil Friedlander, to the establishment of Dazian Foundation for Medical Research. The foundation was established with a 25-year term with a primary mission of “the advancement of medical and allied scientific knowledge.” The estate stipulated it was to have a self-perpetuating board that consisted of five Doctors of Medicine and four laymen.
My first goal was to see if an eponymous building was a condition of Henry Dazian’s will. Looking through the multiple copies present in the Foundation records, I was able to determine two things. Firstly, Dazian had not set down any naming stipulations related to bequests in his will, and secondly, upon the dissolution of the Foundation, all remaining money in the estate was to be distributed to hospitals, sanitariums, and similar such institutions. No specific institutions were named.
The next breadcrumb was the minutes of a special meeting for the Directors of the Dazian Foundation of Medical Research. Held on November 9th, 1961, these minutes include a resolution “unanimously adopted” to distribute the foundation’s funds to various institutions, including: “$850,000 to Beth Israel Hospital for the Dazian Pavilion.” This is equivalent to about $8.7 million in 2024 dollars (based on Bureau of Labor Statistics information). The consensus among the Archives staff was that such a sum merited a named endowment at that time.
I also found a note in an auditor’s report, saying that “on May 14 of 1959, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation adopted a resolution to donate $100,000 to the Actor’s [sic] Fund of America, payable after May, 1962…Designated rooms, or a wing, are to be dedicated to the memory of Henry Dazian.”
It’s important to be careful about your own preconceived narratives as a researcher, and here mine got me derailed; I took that comment to mean the Foundation was seeking to memorialize Dazian before May of 1959, and started looking closely at the correspondence that predated that. Despite reading through a great deal of the correspondence leading up to that point, I found no other mentions of memorializing Dazian.
It was only after I started looking at the correspondence after that point that I noticed a 1960 letter from Arthur Fishberg, president of the Dazian Foundation for Medical Research from 1956 until its dissolution in 1962), to a Dr. Rachmilewitz at The Hebrew University in Israel. Attempting to clear up a miscommunication, Fishberg said that the board had planned three projects within New York “as the most suitable memorializations[sic] of Mr. Dazian in the city in which he passed his entire life.”
Realizing that I had been looking in the wrong direction, I decided to hunt more thoroughly for the minutes from that annual meeting in May of 1959. These showed a bit more of a story. In that meeting, Friedlander proposed a motion to give $100,000 to the Actors’ Fund. This must have been a somewhat contentious vote; the minutes make a note that two of the Foundation’s board members voted against the proposal, and records state how each member of the board voted – a rarity among the minutes, which may imply an unusual level of disagreement.
Additional meetings about the ultimate disposition of capital funds were held in both July and October of 1959, but no minutes of either meeting were included in the records we possess. Finally, on December 2, 1959, the board members of the Foundation were urged to attend a meeting “to discuss a matter of great importance.”
In the minutes of this meeting, Alfred M. Rose proposed a motion to allocate $800,000 to the Beth Israel Hospital. The motion was seconded by Emil Friedlander, and unanimously approved by the board. An allocation is also set aside for the Hospital for Joint Diseases, and each trustee of the foundation is given the right to allocate $25,000 to any institutions permitted by Henry Dazian in his will. Taken together, this finally satisfied our curiosities about the naming of the Dazian Pavilion.
The newly processed records provide a rich body of historical materials for interested researchers. Future avenues of investigation include studying the lives of those who lived in Dazian’s real estate holdings and the living conditions of New York City at that time. The notes of the Foundation members provide insight into their decision-making about what research was funded, which in turn, shaped the history of medicine. Dr. Arthur M. Fishberg, for instance, often included the notes and opinions of the board members showing how decisions were often made on the basis of age, race, and other characteristics of the applicants that would now be protected, and it was shocking to see such blatant discrimination.
Now fully open to research, with description to allow intellectual access, the Aufses Archives is eager to assist those who may also have a seemingly straightforward, or profoundly complicated, topic to investigate.
Sketch of Dazian Pavilion exterior, circa 1929. At the time it was built, Beth Israel believed it to be “the tallest hospital building in the world.” (The final building only stood at thirteen stories.)
In our “Familiar Names: A ‘Who’s Who’ of Beth Israel Buildings” post, you may have noticed that one building is conspicuously absent: the Dazian building. Dazian, the original building on the Petrie campus, was simply referred to as the Beth Israel Hospital for the first part of its history, given that it was the only Beth Israel Hospital building at the time it was opened (to much acclaim) in 1929. During the 1950s and 1960s, the hospital went through a building boom, likely necessitating building names, and campus maps show that the Dazian Pavilion was labeled as such by 1963. But who was Dazian? You might think Beth Israel’s institutional records would hold a clue, but, after receiving several requests to provide the backstory, a few of archivists at the Aufses Archives had approached this research from different angles, and never turned up anything directly mentioning the building’s naming. Sometimes the answers to seemingly straightforward questions are simply not well documented.
We strongly suspected that the building was named for Henry Dazian, a famed Broadway costumer from a prominent family. Henry Dazian was the third generation of his family to own the costuming business and had a history of philanthropy. He served as a trustee for the Actors’ Fund, which was established in 1882 to provide for the burial, retirement, and healthcare needs of those working in the theatrical professions, who were often denied access to services and charities during this period. He also donated to Beth Israel during his lifetime, particularly (and perhaps fittingly) in 1929 when the institution was fundraising to eliminate its debt following the construction of the building that would eventually carry the Dazian name some thirty years later.
We were hoping that the Henry Dazian Estate and Dazian Foundation for Medical Research records would hold clues for solving this mystery. In addition to its Beth Israel connection, the Foundation also worked with Mount Sinai doctors by, among other things, funding scholarships for refugee physicians during World War II. The collection was seeing increased interest from researchers, but it remained largely inaccessible because it was not completely processed. Processing became a priority, and when Tim Hayes, Levy Library Circulation Services Supervisor, joined the Archives for an internship, we were grateful that this collection received renewed attention. He processed this collection, which spans more than fourteen document boxes, and was able to keep an eye out for answers to some of our Dazian-related questions as he reviewed the material. Stay tuned for our next blog post, where Tim takes us on a deep dive of his research into this question.
Reflecting on Beth Israel’s rich history, we want to honor the many namesakes of the 16th Street campus. This post provides brief biographies of some of the men and women whose contributions to Beth Israel’s legacy are more than name deep.
Charles H. Silver was a career public servant, including a term as the President of the New York City Board of Education. He joined the Beth Israel Board of Trustees in 1938 and was its President starting in 1947. He was also active in Jewish-Christian interfaith matters and was a staunch supporter of the Phillips School of Nursing. A highly influential man, the Archives has photographs of Charles Silver with leaders ranging from Vice President Alben Barkley (Truman administration) to Pope John Paul to the discoverer of penicillin, Sir Alexander Fleming. In 1952, the ground was broken for the Charles H. Silver Clinic at Beth Israel Hospital, named in his honor. We have several blog posts dedicated to his legacy, and his New York Times obituary provides a more complete biography.
The Linsky Pavilion is named for Belle and Jack Linsky. Belle Linsky was a Beth Israel Hospital Board of Trustees member, and her husband, Jack Linsky, was the founder of Swingline Staples. The couple was also known for their high-profile art collection, which was eventually donated to the Metropolitan Museum. The Archives catalog has a number of digitized materials about the Linsky Pavilion, which, described as an “ultramodern” and an “unusual circular building” first opened in 1966 and greatly increased Beth Israel’s number of beds.
The Karpas Pavilion, opened in 1966 as a patient care unit, was named for Irving D. Karpas. A childhood friend of Charles Silver, he was a clothing manufacturer and stockbroker. He joined the Beth Israel Hospital Board of Trustees in 1938 and remained on until his death in 1971. His New York Times obituary provides a more complete biography, and photographs of the Karpas Pavilion are online here.
Baird Hall initially opened in 1967 as “a 20-story, 144-unit staff apartment house.” It was named for David G. Baird, who was a stockbroker and philanthropist. His New York Times obituary is available here.
Finally, the 16th Street campus was named for Milton and Carroll Petrie in 1992 due to their more than $21 million in contributions to Beth Israel (according to the 1991 Annual Report) and included the largest single gift ($10 million) to Beth Israel at its time in 1986. Milton J. Petrie was a clothes retailer and Beth Israel Board of Trustees member. The Archives has digitized and undigitized materials about Petrie online here.
Authored by Stefana Breitwieser, Digital Archivist
As we wrap up our 2023 Digitization Project Grant, we are pleased to share a final batch of newly digitized materials – a selection of textual records from the Beth Israel Medical Center alphabetical files, including over 80 World War I letters.
The Beth Israel Medical Center alphabetical files represent a miscellaneous assortment of textual records from throughout the hospital’s history. Each file provides a small insight into one aspect of its organization, which taken together provide a rich material history of the institution. The selection chosen for digitization emphasized materials through the completion of the campus in 1969, and provides insight into the hospital’s management, campus planning, and newsworthy happenings.
Like the annual reports and Board of Trustees minutes, organizational and management records in this selection provide insight into the day-to-day decision-making at Beth Israel for things large and small. The digitized material includes the Rules and Regulations of the Beth Israel Dispensary (1907), excerpts of minutes from the Phillips School of Nursing (1905-1912), minutes from department head meetings (1931-1935), by-laws of the Beth Israel Hospital Association (1947-1960), and directories for the house staff and visiting staff (1950s-1960s).
Campus planning is also a major theme in these materials. From Dazian Pavilion (construction started 1922) to planning for the Linsky Pavilion (opened 1966) these materials closely track the progress, reasoning, and decision-making surrounding the evolution of Beth Israels footprint in the Lower East Side. Of note are a group of articles written by Louis J. Frank, Beth Israel Hospital Superintendent, which describe a range of his theories on hospital management at the time of the construction of the Dazian Pavilion. Topics range from medical humanitarianism to facility planning, from European hospital design to vegetarian hospital food services.
Newspaper clippings (bulk 1909-1933) and press releases (1967-1968) also make up a significant amount of material and would be helpful to anyone interested in events at Beth Israel during those years.
You can browse all the alphabetical files digitized as part of this project here. (Note that some clippings and articles by Frank are still under copyright. The materials will become available as soon as they reach public domain, largely on January 1, 2024.)
Left: Article by Frank titled “The Meatless Diet,” published in the journal The Modern Hospital, which argues that vegetarianism is a healthy, cost-effective way to keep a kosher kitchen in the hospital, 1921. Right: Published speech that Frank gave to the BIH BOT titled “What Price Humanitarianism?” which argued passionately for moral and spiritual obligations to care for the needy, even during times of financial precarity, 1926.
World War I letters
Included in the alphabetical files are three years’ worth of World War I letters (1917-1919) to and from Louis J. Frank. The correspondents are largely Beth Israel doctors deployed to military hospitals on the front lines in France.
This postcard from Captain Leo B. Meyer, head of the BIH Medical Board, to Louis J. Frank pictures Base Hospital No. 3 at the Asile de Vauclaire, a 14th-century monastery-turned-military hospital and home to the Mount Sinai Hospital unit. Meyer was stationed there for much of the war. The Archives have a number of materials on Base Hospital No. 3.
Major topics include daily life of those serving in the war, surgery during battle (particularly limb salvage and amputation), x-ray training for military doctors, and reactions to the Armistice. News of Beth Israel is also frequent, particularly medical and nursing staff shortages, the needs of future and current military patients, accounts of various Beth Israel doctors at home and abroad, and the status of the new Beth Israel hospital building (future Dazian Pavilion). The Influenza Epidemic of 1918 is mentioned throughout, and there are also several references to the Mount Sinai Hospital unit.
These letters are a valuable resource to anyone interested in the role of American doctors serving in World War I. You can browse the letters here.
In light of recent news, the Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. MD Archives remains committed to preserving Beth Israel’s rich history. As part of our ongoing 2023 Digitization Project Grant, we have been digitizing a selection of photographs from the Mount Sinai Beth Israel photograph collection. This blog post seeks to recognize and celebrate Beth Israel employees over the years, naming and putting faces to just a few of the thousands of people who have contributed to the hospital’s history.
Mr. Scemes, engineering staff member, fixing sink at Emergency Department, circa 1930s (link)
Elias Gordon, MD, showing his sculptures at the BIH art show, December 1949 (link)
Mrs. Brumford at her farewell party following her retirement from food services, circa 1950s (link)
1960s
Carmela Pietraniella, patient beautician, November 1967 (link)
Eugene Mills R.PH., Chief Pharmacist, November 1967 (link)
B. Ethel Brewer, staff member at the BIMC processing center, November 1967 (link)
Jack Gradel, Medicaid coordinator, November 1967 (link)
1970s
Leon R. Jones, laboratory staff member, July 1977 (link)
Dick Jannsen, Purchasing Department medical-surgical buyer, February 1975 (link)
Ruth Kirsch, medical secretary for Department of Psychiatry, November 1974 (link)
Mr. Arrogo, patients’ accounts staff member, December 1976 (link)
1980s
Adela Borrero at her farewell party following her retirement as a housekeeper at the MICU, circa 1980s (link)
Mike Centrangol, Methadone Maintenance Treatment Program vocational rehabilitation counselor, February 1982 (link)
Bette Pesetsky, director of grants management, March 1982 (link)
Edwina Thompson, RN and Bernadette Sheehan, RN, December 1981 (link)
More information on this project
As part of the METRO Digitization Project Grant, additional materials from the Mount Sinai Beth Israel collection will be available as they are added to our catalog throughout Fall 2023, including more photographs, World War I letters, and other documentation on the history of Beth Israel through 1969. You can read more about this project here, and see our previous blog post on our annual reports and Board of Trustees minutes.
Authored by Stefana Breitwieser, Digital Archivist
