Provident Hospital and Training School, 1891-1929
Brown and wonderful with longing
To cure ills of Africa,
Democracy,
And mankind,
Also ills quite common
Among all who stand on two feet.
Langston Hughes wrote these verses in his poem "Interne at Provident" published in 1958. The poem in its entirety spoke to the continuing need of black doctors and nurses to further develop their medical skills and practice their professions and it is no coincidence that Hughes' poem features Provident. Provident Hospital has been called a living legacy but to appreciate its legacy one must first acknowledge its origins. At the heart of the 1891 founding of Provident Hospital and Training School in Chicago is the story of a determined black woman eager to hone her craft of service and care in the field of nursing.
Reconstructing Our Collective Racial Identity and Battling Jim Crow in the North
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 Illinois Training School for Nurses and the Cook County School of Nursing, Reynolds and her brother, Reverend Louis H. Reynolds appealed to Dr. Daniel Hale Williams for assistance.1 Shortly thereafter with the assistance of Chicago's black and white citizens, Provident Hospital and Training School opened its doors on May 4,1891 at 29th and Dearborn to patients and practitioners of all races. 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. In the first annual 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 nursing 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 which would later be increased to three months by 1896.3 In its first year, one hundred and seventy-five applicants applied with only ten accepted for admission and only seven officially enrolled. On October 27, 1892 the Provident Hospital Nurse Training School (School) held its first graduation for four of its inaugural students: Lillian E. Haywood, Florence Phillips, Bertha I. Estes, and Emma A. Reynolds. Reynolds would further distinguish herself becoming the first black woman to graduate from the Women's Medical College of Chicago in 1895 (now the Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine).4 Despite the 1893 Depression and years of inadequate financing, the nursing school persevered and maintained high standards of excellence extending the training period to two years by 1896. 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. Student nurses kept tight schedules and would average attending to roughly fifty-five patients daily in addition to working in the dispensary. The School's curriculum was diverse and courses ranged from training in antiseptic preparation and nursing for surgery, cooking, dietetics, and massage. Provident's student nurses even administered their own visiting nurse service between 1896-1898, after the Chicago Visiting Nurse Association had denied an alumna employment in 1894.5
A Providential New Century Dawns: 1900-1929
As the turn of the century approached it became evident that the original hospital building, having only twelve beds, was insufficient to maintain the medical needs of the communities it served. Administration of the hospital and training school now fell to George Cleveland Hall who also served as the new Chief of Staff after Dr. Williams' departure to Freedmen's Hospital in 1894. Hall praised the skill and acumen of Provident's nurses asserting "the graduates of this institution are in charge of other training schools for nurses and kindred institutions...throughout the country."6 On June 7, 1898, the hospital moved to a building on 36th and Dearborn equipped with modern facilities and seventy-five bed capacity. Two years later, the nurses' quarters were also expanded to include a dormitory and assembly room as a result of a generous donation. Later by 1902, two major changes had been implemented: the expansion of the nursing program to three years and the organization of an alumnae association with Dr. Isabella Garnett, an 1895 Provident alumna as its president.7 Garnett is a shining example of a nurse whose work treated both the physical pains and social constraints of the black community. She fulfilled Hall's declaration of faith in Provident's nurses' ability by working first as a school nurse and, like Emma Reynolds, becoming a doctor after matriculating from Chicago's College of Physicians and Surgeons (now UIC College of Medicine) in 1901.8 She recognized the same race prejudice that initiated the founding of Provident also existed for blacks living in Evanston and on the North Shore who were refused medical treatment at both Evanston and St. Francis Hospitals. In 1914, Dr. Garnett and her husband Dr. Arthur Butler opened the Evanston Sanitarium on the upper floors of their home at 1918 Asbury Avenue as a general practice and a nurse training school. A year later, Garnett nurtured and mentored another Provident graduate nurse, Rhoygnette Webb who began working at the Sanitarium as its head nurse and by 1918, the Sanitarium was incorporated and overseen by a multiracial board of directors.9
Provident's graduate nurses continued to be at the forefront of positive social change regardless of the persistent racial antagonism that followed them. At the height of the 1918 flu epidemic, two of Provident's graduate nurses served at Camp Grant in Rockford, Illinois despite the American Red Cross and the Army Nurse Corps reluctance to accept black nurses into service during WWI. Willie Edna DePriest Cary and Virginia Richardson Steele Guy along with seven other black nurses at Camp Grant in Rockford, Illinois were the first to serve in the Army Nurse Corps between December 1918 and August 1919. Although they lived in segregated quarters, these nurses served both black and white soldiers.