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Name
Carnegie, Andrew, 1835-1919 (Author)
Home Trust Company (Author)
Carnegie Corporation of New York (Author)
Title
Carnegie General Donations, Gifts and Grants to Galloway Memorial Hospital, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tenn.
Collection Name
Carnegie Corporation of New York Records
Archival Context
Series II. Files on Microfilm. II.A. Gifts and Grants. II.A.5. General Donations
Subjects
Endowments; Hospitals; Academic medical centers; Nashville (Tenn.); Vanderbilt University. School of Medicine; Flexner, Abraham, 1866-1959; Methodist Episcopal Church, South; Kirkland, James H. (James Hampton), 1859-1939; General Education Board (New York, N.Y.)
Format
correspondence
Genre
Business correspondence
Origin Information
1913-05-21
Physical Description
microfilm, 16 mm, b&w
digitized microfilm
Note (Reel no.)
Reel 81
Note
PDF may contain multiple grant documents.
Galloway Memorial Hospital, Nashville, TN
After Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell announced his capital improvements budget last year, one of the least-noticed items was the planned renovation of a long-neglected structure next to the Howard School office building. Few people knew that the buildin g was originally intended to be Galloway Hospital, which was supposed to be the medical facility affiliated with the Vanderbilt School of Medicine. When the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, first organized Vanderbilt University in 1873, it didn't originally have a medical school component. However, before the University officially opened on the West End campus, its trustees negotiated with a faculty-owned-and-operated medical college that was, at that point, a department of the University of Nashville. This institution was located several blocks south of downtown on a hill that was then called 'College Hill.' ... ...In 1910, the Carnegie Foundation sent Abraham Flexner on a national tour of medical schools. He was not especially impressed with the Vanderbilt School of Medicine, noting that it had virtually no admission requirements and poor laboratory facilities. However, he concluded that Vanderbilt was better positioned than Tennessee's other eight medical schools. Largely because of Flexner's conclusion, the Carnegie Foundation in 1913 donated $1 million to improve the Vanderbilt School of Medicine staff and laboratory. That amount was not enough to build a new hospital, something the medical school also needed. However, this didn't appear to be a big problem at the time, because a new hospital to be called Galloway Memorial, funded by Nashville-area Methodist churches, was under construction on Vanderbilt's south campus starting in 1916. The proximity of the hospital to the Vanderbilt School of Medicine was not a coincidence; Vanderbilt Chancellor James Kirkland had urged the Methodists to build Galloway Hospital there so that the medical school could partner with it. For a few years, Vanderbilt's partnership with Galloway Memorial appeared to be solidified. However, a couple of things changed by the time American troops came home after World War I. For one thing, Nashville's Methodist community was unable to come up with funds to finish Galloway. For another thing, Flexner left the Carnegie Foundation to work for the General Education Board, the foundation affiliated with philanthropist John Rockefeller. A third occurrence was the catastrophic influenza epidemic of 1918, which killed 20 million people worldwide and reminded Americans just how much needed to be done in the area of health care. Largely under Flexner's influence, the GEB in 1919 announced it would give another $4 million to the Vanderbilt School of Medicine, the largest gift that had been made to the university at that time. With that amount pledged, Kirkland began to make new plans for medical school buildings on the south campus. He also hired a new dean named Canby Robinson. Robinson lobbied heavily for a new combined medical school and hospital to be built adjacent to the main Vanderbilt campus. This stance aggravated Kirkland, who felt obligated to use Galloway Memorial and who didn't think it would be appropriate to ask the Carnegie Foundation and GEB for more money.... ...Eventually, Kirkland relented to Robinson, and in the spring of 1921, he made a formal request to both the Carnegie Foundation and the GEB for more money. To Kirkland's surprise, each promised an additional $1.5 million, bringing to a staggering $8 million the amount of money that the medical school had raised from the two foundations in just eight years... ...The Vanderbilt Medical Center building broke ground in October 1923 and opened with great acclaim two years later (even though many Nashville residents were still upset about the University's abandonment of the south campus.) ... ...Nashville's Methodist community was very upset with Vanderbilt's decision not to use the Galloway Hospital building, toward which many citizens had donated money. Galloway remained unfinished for two decades. Then, in the late 1930s, the city of Nashville bought it, finished it and turned it into a local government office building... ...During the 1980s, pockets of the neighborhood became converted back to residential use. Today, the hill is known as 'Rutledge Hill' or 'Rolling Mill Hill' and is an area that Purcell hopes will become a fashionable urban neighborhood. Two of its key structures are the old Galloway Hospital, which Metro will soon renovate, and an unusual brick office building at 631 Second Avenue South. That structure, once a medical school facility called Litterer Laboratories , has the words 'Vanderbilt University' carved into the archway above its entrance. " [SOURCE: Carey, Bill. "Galloway Hospital was key to School of Medicine's roots." The Vanderbilt Register, Vanderbilt University, 2000, https://news.vanderbilt.edu/archived-news/register/articles/index-id=4554.html. Accessed 27 Sep. 2018.]
Language
English
Library Location
Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University
Copyright Status
No Copyright - United States
Persistent URL
https://dx.doi.org/10.7916/d8-gwwh-hz21