Women's hospital. This hospital was, for more than a century, a teaching hospital for women doctors and a place where women could receive treatment from them. It was the first hospital in Boston to offer obstetrics, gynecology, and pediatrics all in one facility. Material includes memoranda, written histories, photographs and scrapbooks. Also documented are such topics as a 1915 controversy over abortion, using chloroform as an anesthetic, and African American interns. The collection includes several hundred letters collected for their autograph value for fund-raising fairs. The letters do not relate to the Hospital; content includes woman suffrage, abolition, freedmen's education, literature, and Civil War relief. Notable correspondents include: Louisa May Alcott, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Stone Blackwell, Elizabeth Blackwell, Lydia Maria Child, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Julia Ward Howe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Lucy Stone, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and John Greenleaf Whittier.

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The copyright owner of this collection is unknown. It is the responsibility of the researcher to identify and satisfy the holders of all copyrights. Permission to publish reproductions or quotations beyond "fair use" must also be obtained from the Sophia Smith Collection as owners of the physical property.