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• 1 media/i040212_pm.png media/29th and Dearborn.jpg media/i030235_pm.png 2022-06-14T13:43:53+00:00 Provident Hospital and Training School, 1891-1929 5 plain 2022-08-22T18:18:16+00:00 Provident Hospital has been called a living legacy but to understand its legacy one must first understand its origins. At the heart of the 1891 founding of Provident Hospital and Training School for Nurses in Chicago is the story of a determined young black woman eager to hone her craft of service and care in the field of nursing.
  Emma A. Reynolds was born in Frankfort, Ohio in 1862. After graduating from Wilberforce University, she worked as a teacher in Kansas City, Missouri and while there learned of the dramatic differences in how health care was provided for black Americans. With a vision to bridge that gap, Reynolds began applying to nursing schools but found that she was excluded solely on the basis of her race and color. After being denied admission to every nursing school in Chicago including the Cook County School of Nursing, Reynolds and her brother, Reverend Louis Reynolds appealed to Dr. Daniel Hale Williams for assistance.1 Support, contributions, and funding was provided by Chicago's black and white citizens and while there was fear in the black community that Provident would become a segregated institution it overcame this allegation by opening its doors on May 4,1891 at 29th and Dearborn to patients and practitioners of all races. However, members of the hospital's founding committee recognized the importance of the nursing school and acknowledged its significance in furthering the advancements of black women in nursing when in its report of the training school they stated that the hospital's first priority was for "the proper caring for the sick...and secondly and especially, the opening of a new field of useful and noble employment for colored women, who are otherwise barred from lucrative and respectable occupations."2
  
  From the beginning, the School set high standards in its admissions policy preferring women who had graduated high school and who prior to final admission would be subject to a month's probation. In its first year, one hundred and seventy-five applicants applied but only ten were admitted. The nurses' training period was initially set at eighteen months which was typical for Chicago's nursing schools. By June 1892, the Provident Hospital Nurse Training School (School) had officially enrolled seven student nurses: Lillian E. Haywood, Florence Phillips, Bertha I. Estes, Ada L. Jones, Luella E. Robinson, and Emma A. Reynolds. The School's rules required day nurses to work a twelve hour shift with an hour for dinner and, where able, additional time allotted for rest or exercise. Their roles varied too with some working in the hospital while others were assigned to private cases.