“You are a natural doctor, and your best work will always be in the full exercise of direct medical work.... You know I am different from you in not being a natural doctor; so, naturally, I do not confine myself to practice.
“I am never without some patients but my thought, and active interest, is chiefly given to some of those moral ends—for which ends I took up the study of medicine.”]
The house was found in Bleecker Street close by the poor quarters, at an annual rental of one thousand, three hundred dollars, and an estimate was made of another five hundred dollars for furnishing, as well as an outlay of one hundred dollars for fuel. My proposition was now to go to Boston and try to get half of the rent pledged for a three years’ lease, Dr. Blackwell to raise the other half of the three years’ rent from friends in New York, and then to hold a Sale or Fair to raise the remaining six hundred dollars.
On the next day, the regular Fair meeting was held at Dr. Blackwell’s. The new plan was brought forward, and, although it was as yet nothing but a plan, it acted like a warm, soft rain upon a field after a long drought. The knitting and sewing (for which I have a private horror under all conditions) were laid aside, to my great relief. And the project was talked of with so much enthusiasm that I already saw myself in imagination making my evening visits to the patients in the New York Infirmary; while all the members present (and there were unusually many—I think, six or seven) discussed the question the next day among their circles of friends whether Henry Ward Beecher or a physician of high standing should make the opening speech in the institution.
This excitement increased the interest exceedingly, and the succeeding meetings were quite enthusiastic. The babies’ stockings were never again resumed (don’t think that because I detested those stockings so much I am cruel enough to wish the little creatures to go barefoot), but plans were made for raising money in New York and for getting articles for sale on a larger scale.
Thus it happened that I went to Boston for the second time in the beginning of July, visiting Mrs. C. M. Severance and using my introductions to begin a regular, systematized campaign “to beg for an institution for American women.” For myself I could never have begged; I would sooner have drowned myself. Now I determined to beg money from Americans to establish an institution for their own benefit. Dr. Blackwell agreed to this plan, as there was nothing risked in it, I taking the whole responsibility.
In spite of finding the women of Boston quite ready to listen to me, it was not an easy task to get a three years’ promise of six hundred and fifty dollars. The first question put to me was always, “Can you not raise this small sum in rich New York?” The explanation had to be repeated over and over that only a very few women in social life dared to connect themselves openly with “such radical reformers” as we appeared to them. To turn upon “the sphere of woman” and declare openly that she can take the whole responsibility of managing a public institution, as well as the care as a physician of sick women and children, seemed so monstrous to most men and women that in New York money was intrusted to us only with incredulity.
The second and more important question was as to “why we needed and wanted a dispensary and a hospital for women physicians.” Nobody at this present time would or could believe that this need then had to most people a preposterous sound.
And here I may tell you an episode which occurred to me in Philadelphia, to which city I went after returning from Boston with my six hundred and fifty dollars pledged. In Philadelphia, the first medical college for women (the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania), had been established in 1850, and it was housed in extremely modest quarters in a rear building on Arch Street. I was introduced through Dr. Ann Preston, one of the first graduates of this college and now one of its professors. And I spoke to the friends of this enterprise at a gathering of both men and women, explaining the need of a practical professional training after a merely theoretical course of instruction. I tried to make plain the greater difficulties which beset the introduction of the young women students to the private patients of their preceptors even though these patients were ever so poor, and I illustrated the situation by quoting Dr. Ann Preston’s conscientious refusal to practice under such circumstances, she simply teaching physiology in the college. I also spoke of others going to Europe to seek this clinical instruction from foreign physicians and maternity hospitals.
After having exhausted the subject, as well as myself, one of the ladies present said—it was in the parlors of Lucretia Mott—“Then thee thinks that a hospital must be connected with the college?” I replied, “Yes.” “Then thee thinks that practical training cannot be got by the young physician among the poor?” I said, “No.” “We thank thee for thy coming to tell us so, and we promise thee that we shall exert ourselves at once to get a hospital of our own.”
Thus ended my efforts in that noble city. But the Philadelphia Woman’s Hospital was established there within the five years following my visit.