‘For the Convenience and Comfort of the Persons Employed by them’: The Lowell Corporation Hospital, 1840

‘For the Convenience and Comfort of the Persons Employed by them’: The Lowell Corporation Hospital, 1840–1930

Published:2013-01 Issue:1 Volume:57 Page:45-64
ISSN:0025-7273
Container-title:Medical History
language:en
Short-container-title:Med. Hist.

Author:

Greenlees Janet

Abstract

AbstractThe first industrial hospital in America opened in 1840 in Lowell, Massachusetts. The Lowell Corporation Hospital was sponsored by the town’s textile employers for ninety years. This article analyses the contextual complications surrounding the employers’ sustained funding of the hospital. Motivations for sustained sponsorship included paternalism, clinical excellence, business custom, the labour situation in Lowell, civic duty and the political advantages of paternalism. By analysing the changing local context of the hospital, this article argues that a broader, more integrated approach to healthcare histories and institution histories is needed if we are to fully understand the myriad of healthcare providers and their local and national importance.

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Subject

History,Medicine (miscellaneous),General Nursing

Reference98 articles.

1. 16Rosenberg,op. cit. (note 4), 105–7.

2. 33Emphasis in original. Ibid., 11.

3. 73In addition to many independent physicians practising in Lowell, alternative therapies held a continuous strong presence. For example, Dr George P. Madden’s Hydropathic Institution was well established by the late nineteenth century. Advert in P. J. Lynch, Souvenir History of St. John’s Hospital, Written for the Quarter-Centennial Celebration of the Founding of the Institution (Lowell, MA: Morning Mail Print, 1892), 89. Father John’s Medicine developed at the Lowell pharmacy Carleton and Hovey in 1855 as a non-alcoholic cough medicine for Father John O’Brien. Comprising mostly cod liver oil, it went on to be produced for mass consumption and was initially promoted by Father John. It was produced in the city until the 1980s when production moved to Cody, Wyoming. For more on Father John, see http://library.uml.edu/clh/Fath/Fath4.Html (accessed 10 February 2012).

4. 20Donations and bequests rarely covered medical costs at voluntary hospitals. Patients were expected to make up the difference. Starr cites the example of the Pennsylvania Hospital. R. W. Downie, ‘Pennsylvania Hospital Admissions, 1751–1850: A Survey’, Transactions and Studies of the College of Physicians, 32 (1964), 20–35; 25, as cited in Starr, ibid., 154.

5. 71Vogel, op. cit. (note 4), 120.

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