One of the great advantages in such transference to England urged upon Dr. Blackwell was that we would not there have to live down or fight the nefarious and criminal practice which was being carried on chiefly in New York City, but also more or less in smaller places, and which by its advertising in the newspapers had created such a strong prejudice against “Doctresses,” as its practitioners were styled.
We were obliged to place the intention of training nurses in the foreground when appealing for sympathy or assistance in our work, in order to get any kind of hearing among the philanthropists, or in sending articles to the newspapers.
Finally, in November, we saw the result of our efforts becoming substantiated in boxes, in baskets, in trunks and in the closets, so that we now were ready to decide upon a locality where we might offer our treasures to the benevolent of New York City.
Dr. Blackwell called a meeting in her parlors of all the ladies who had interested themselves during the summer, and we discussed halls, as well as vestries, which might prove attractive to the public, and a committee was appointed to visit the different places and to seek interviews with those in control of them.
I was, of course, one of the members of the committee, and we decided to go to the places in groups of two or three and to report the result at the end of a week. In less than three days, however, the chairman called a meeting of the committee because of the experiences of the three groups who had spent two days from morning till evening visiting the agents of the different desirable, and even undesirable, locations. Everywhere they had received the same answer, namely, “We don’t want to have anything to do with women doctors or irresponsible ladies wishing to hold a Fair in our place.”
Not the proposition to pay in advance nor the promise that we should not advertise the fact that it was intended to furnish a hospital for female physicians, as they were then called, could soften the hearts of these men, who simply closed all discussion by saying, “It is not our custom to deal with ladies.” Even the kind words of Dr. Bellows could not induce the men of his church to allow us the use of their vestry. What was to be done?
A general meeting was again called, and the husband of one of the committee, Mrs. Haydock, suggested that we hire a large loft in a building, in the business quarters, of which he had control. This was an unfinished room with a bare floor of unplaned boards with numerous knot holes and protruding nails. It had no fixtures for lighting and no ornaments overhead but rough beams and rafters. Another lady of the committee proposed to send her parlor chandeliers to be connected with the gas pipes; while a friend of Dr. Blackwell made a drawing showing how to cover bare, rough walls with evergreens and wreaths. Others loaned rugs for the floor and draperies for the walls, and we used evergreens to conceal the bareness above.
The necessity to have a place at all caused us to accept these propositions and, in spite of three long rough flights of stairs, we advertised our Fair largely and also the motive for holding it, praising its arrangements and enlarging upon its novelty as well as upon its choice goods. We charged ten cents admission and we drew a good attendance for four days, realizing six hundred dollars net profit. And what an immense sum this seemed to us all!
CHAPTER XX
Opening of the New York Infirmary, both dispensary and hospital—Details of its arrangement and furnishing—Dr. Zakrzewska is resident physician and instructor to the students, and also superintendent and housekeeper, while carrying on her private practice and consulting in the Out-Practice—Sample record of one day’s work—Four resident students from the Philadelphia medical college—Incidents in practice—Mobbing of the Infirmary following death of a patient. (Twenty-eight years of age: 1856-1857.)