The history of women in health care and the health sciences has long been an ambiguous one. While for millennia women have been healers in domestic settings, a role for them in professional health care only began to emerge in the mid-19^th century with prominence of Florence Nightingale and the development of nursing as an occupation – for more than a century afterward almost the exclusive domain of women. At the same time, women also began to make forays into the medical profession. In 1849, when Elizabeth Blackwell received her medical degree from Geneva Medical College in upstate New York, she became the first formally trained female physician in the United States. Though others followed Blackwell’s path in the years to come, by 1900 only 5% of U.S. physicians were women – a number that had barely increased, to only 6%, almost fifty years later. After the passage of Title IX in 1972, however, this number began to rise, and by 2015 women made up 36% of the physician workforce in the US, a level that has remained constant for the last several years.

Columbia Health Sciences Library's Archives & Special Collections offers several important resources, both in print and in manuscript form, for researchers interested in the history of women in the health sciences. Among the most important printed sources are the digitized publications produced by Columbia’s health science schools and their affiliated hospitals, including annual reports, yearbooks, school catalogs, histories, and alumni publications.

Of particular interest are the School of Nursing's catalogs, annual reports (found first in the annual reports of Presbyterian Hospital [1892-1958] and then in the combined Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center reports [1959-1979]), and its alumni association’s magazine (for which we have digital copies for 1906-1960). Also of importance are the annual reports from 1894-1942 of Babies Hospital (now Children’s Hospital of New York). Founded by women in 1887, Babies Hospital long had a significant female presence in both its leadership and staff.

Archives & Special Collections staff have also developed two databases that may be of interest to researchers. The first, the obituary index for graduates of the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, contains more than 10,000 death notices for VP&S graduates; the first female graduates of the College were in 1921. The second database contains information about the early graduates of the Babies Hospital Special Nursing Programs, which included the Training School for Nursery Maids (1892-1944) and the Post-Graduate Nurses course (1907-1932). 

We also have numerous personal papers and corporate records in our manuscript collections that are by or about women. These include the papers of such notable Columbia Medical Center researchers such as Dorothy Andersen and Hattie Alexander; nurses such as Anne Penland and Dorothy Reilly; and female-led organizations such as the Maternity Center Association and the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. In addition, Archives & Special Collections contains a large collection of School of Nursing records, including the Dean’s Office records from the mid-20^th century onward and many Babies Hospital records.

For researchers wishing to learn more about our resources in the history of women in the health care professions, please feel free to contact us at hslarchives@columbia.edu.