Print preview Close

Showing 2544 results

Archival description
Text With digital objects
Print preview View:

Howard Phillip Venable oral history transcript

An interview of the Washington University Medical Center Desegregation History Project, conducted by Edwin W. McCleskey and associates, 1990. Approximate Length: 1 hour and 16 minutes.

Please note that some of Venable’s statements contain ambiguities that the interviewers were unable to verify.

Howard Phillip Venable discusses his experience at Homer G. Phillips Hospital, the desegregation of hospitals in St. Louis, his work with students, and his experience with housing discrimination.

Venable describes how he came to work at Homer G. Phillips Hospital and the segregation of medical care and medical education in St. Louis in the 1930s and 1940s. He explains the connections between Homer Phillips, Washington University, and St. Louis University, and discusses the doctors from Washington University and Barnes Hospital who came to Homer Phillips. Venable also relates his work identifying ophthalmological differences between Black and white patients.

He addresses his role in desegregating an ophthalmology society in St. Louis, the housing discrimination he faced in Creve Coeur and his case against the city, and the part he played in the desegregation of St. Louis hospitals. He relates his experience as a Black doctor before Barnes integrated, and the white patients he saw at his private practice. He also discusses the closure of Homer Phillips and the differences between Homer Phillips and Max Sarkloff Hospital (City Hospital No. 1).

Venable discusses the establishment of the Katie and Howard Phillip Venable Student Research Fund in Ophthalmology and his experience as an associate examiner for the American Board of Ophthalmology. He also explains what he thinks should be done to get more Black students into medical school.

David Goldring oral history transcript

An interview of the Washington University Medical Center Desegregation History Project, conducted by Edwin W. McCleskey and associates, 1990. Approximate Length: 19 minutes.

David Goldring relates stories he heard and his own experience with the admission of Black children to St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

He begins with stories he heard about the attitudes of chiefs of pediatrics, hospital administrators, and hospital board toward the admission of Black children to Children’s Hospital. Goldring discusses John Howland, who was the first chief of pediatrics at the hospital, and how Howland left after 6 months because the hospital board was opposed to the admission of Black children. This situation changed when St. Louis Children's Hospital opened the Butler Ward, a segregated ward for Black children in 1923.

Goldring then relates a story from his time as a resident in 1941-1944. He says that one night, a Black child needed an incubator and there were none available in the Butler ward, so Goldring admitted him to the infant ward. An administrator called the chief of pediatrics, Alexis Hartmann Sr., to report it, but Hartmann let the admission stand. Goldring next briefly discusses the integration of the staff of Children's Hospital.

He relates the role of Park J. White played in training Black interns and residents at Homer G. Phillips Hospital. Goldring later discusses the differences between working at Children’s Hospital and Homer Phillips, and the closure of Homer Phillips.

Samuel B. Guze oral history transcript

An interview of the Washington University Medical Center Desegregation History Project, conducted by Edwin W. McCleskey and associates, 1990. Approximate Length: 49 minutes.

Samuel Guze discusses his experience with segregation and desegregation of Barnes Hospital, Renard Hospital, as well as its psychiatric service and unit. He guesses the psychiatric service desegregated the Barnes Hospital psychiatric unit in October 1953.

He describes the desegregation of Washington University School of Medicine. He says the Executive Faculty gave the admissions committee discretion in flexible criteria for admission for those with disadvantaged educational background. Roy Vagelos of biochemistry was a key player on the executive faculty along with John Herweg, who headed the admissions committee starting in the early 1960s. Guze recalled that the first African American medical student admitted had difficulty and the second had no difficulty, but the Executive Faculty wanted more African Americans admitted and numbers did not start to go up significantly until about 1968. Guze says this was due to the hiring of Robert Lee, Assistant Dean for Minority Affairs.

Guze discusses the parallel but related desegregation of the St. Louis City Hospital and health care systems. He notes that the segregated city healthcare system included two large general hospitals, Homer G. Phillips Hospital for Blacks and the older St. Louis City Hospital No. 1 for whites. He explains that there was one psychiatric unit at the Malcolm Bliss Center for whites and a separate psychiatric unit for Blacks run by Black psychiatrists at Homer G. Phillips. Guze recalls the teaching arrangement with Homer G. Phillips was less complete and depended on personal relationships in each service. Guze notes that desegregation of both facilities led the city to evaluate whether the city needed two large general hospital complexes. A group of Black physicians approached Guze in the 1970s about an affiliation, but Guze insisted on conditions that Homer G. Phillips was not prepared to meet then, including the right to appoint medical staff.

Michael M. Karl oral history transcript

An interview of the Washington University Medical Center Desegregation History Project, conducted by Edwin W. McCleskey and associates, 1990. Approximate Length: 11 minutes.

Michael Karl discusses the ways in which hospitals were segregated in St. Louis when he first came to the city in the 1930s, and how the desegregation of Barnes Hospital came about.

Karl begins by addressing the status of segregated medical facilities in St. Louis in the early 1930s and 1940s and then discusses the desegregation of Barnes Hospital and the elimination of the segregated wards for Black patients, Wards 0300 and 0400. He remarks on the role the hospital boards played in preventing the hospital from desegregating, and the similarities and differences between the Black and white wards.

Karl also discusses the high level of medical care for Black patients at Barnes Hospital and some Black physicians who worked at Barnes.

He says he believes Barnes was integrated in 1962, however the exact date when the hospital was fully integrated is not known.

Ella B. Brown oral history transcript

An interview of the Washington University Medical Center Desegregation History Project, conducted by Edwin W. McCleskey and associates, 1990. Approximate Length: 22 minutes.

Please note that edits made by Brown have been incorporated into the interview transcript so there is some discrepancy between the audio recording and the final transcript.

Ella Brown discusses her experiences at Homer G. Phillips Hospital, where she served as director of nursing service at the time of its closure, and the effect the closing of the hospital had on health care for the Black community.

Brown relates her memories of the closure of Homer G. Phillips Hospital and the pain she felt. She discusses the political and economic issues at play, and later explains the logistics involved in closing the hospital and provides details from its last day of operation.

She also discusses the connection between the hospital and Washington University, and the merger of the Homer G. Phillips School of Nursing with St. Louis City Hospital Training School for Nurses in 1966.

Results 101 to 120 of 2544