Montefiore Hospital 1

Montefiore Hospital, Records, 1899-1998

Montefiore Hospital 1

Rauh Jewish Archives Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania MSS# 286 Seventeen boxes; 30 volumes; 17.75 linear feet

History of the Montefiore Hospital (1911-1990)

In 1898, a group of seventeen women formed the Hebrew Ladies Hospital Aid Society (HLHAS) to aid new Jewish immigrants who had come to Pittsburgh to escape oppression in Europe. This group tried to meet the medical and social needs of the new arrivals, most of who had settled in the Hill District. Annie Jacobs (Mrs. Barnett) Davis was the first HLHAS chairman. She and her co-workers went into the homes of the sick, bringing kosher food bought with their Home Sick Fund. To supplement their own visiting programs, they paid the salary of a public health nurse, stationed at the Irene Kaufmann Settlement. They also paid hospitals, including Passavant, Mercy, Allegheny General, and Western Pennsylvania, to provide medical care for indigent Jewish patients.

Almost from the time of origin of the HLHAS, the members began to collect funds for a Jewish hospital in order to provide an opportunity for training and hospital affiliation for Jewish doctors which were denied them elsewhere and to furnish hospital care for Jewish patients in need of kosher food and care in a Jewish setting. This effort was frowned upon by some of the more assimilated and powerful members of the Jewish community. Undeterred, by 1907, the HLHAS had accumulated $25,000 for this purpose. They then decided to involve their husbands in fund raising, resulting in $39,000 in additional contributions.

A mansion on Center Avenue in the Hill District, purchased for $60,000, was converted into a hospital and opened in May 1908. From its beginning, the hospital, which was nonsectarian in its acceptance of patients and its selection of house staff, suffered from a lack of space and a shortage of money, especially because there did not exist any sizable endowment fund. These problems persisted throughout the hospital's existence. The hospital continued to depend on funds from the HLHAS and its successor, the Ladies Hospital Aid Society (LHAS), the greater Jewish community, public charities, individual gifts, and governmental agencies to make up for deficits that were not covered by reimbursements for patient care. Although Montefiore was identified as a Jewish hospital, care was offered on a nonsectarian basis.

Although the HLHAS was instrumental in the establishment of Montefiore Hospital and continued to play an important role in the day-to-day functioning of the hospital, control of its governing board was quickly assumed by some of the men in Pittsburgh's Jewish community. Not only did the HLHAS/LHAS contribute about $3,000,000 to the hospital during its existence, it also provided for the care of indigent patients, scholarships for nursing students, and the salary for a full-time director of volunteers. Its members visited Jewish patients in area hospitals, operated a gift shop, provided floral decorations, and operated a volunteer program, the nursery, a recreation program, and an assistance program for the blind. The organization formed the

charitable core of the hospital.

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In 1909, the Montefiore Hospital Training School for Nurses was chartered with the first class of eight graduating in 1910. It became the Montefiore Hospital School of Nursing and remained in existence until mounting expenses and the increasing need for baccalaureate degrees for nurses resulted in its closing in 1976 after having graduated over 1,400 nurses.

An outpatient facility, the Montefiore Hospital dispensary, and a preventive health center were begun in 1922. The next year, a social service department was added to the dispensary through the efforts of the HLHAS. Its role increased rapidly, and it became the field-training center for the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work. Montefiore began operating Pennsylvania's first home care program in 1952. The hospital also provided medical services to the Bickur Cholim Convalescent and Nursing Home and to the Jewish Home and Hospital for the Aged, as well as creating additional outreach programs to serve the Jewish community.

Not long after its opening, the activities at Montefiore Hospital soon outgrew the existing structure and a fund-raising drive for a new hospital was initiated. Despite some opposition from the more conservative Jews of Pittsburgh, property at Fifth Avenue and Darragh Street in the Oakland neighborhood, near the University of Pittsburgh, was purchased for $350,000. A new hospital, which opened in 1929, was built on that site. In 1950, a teaching wing of 32 beds was opened in memory of Ensign William Ira Adelman, whose family contributed $75,000. At about that time, an Institute of Research was founded with funding from the Anathan family, the estate of Leo Lehman, the Maurice and Laura Falk foundation, and Mrs. Jessie Keyt McCready. The Liliane S. Kaufmann School of Nursing Residence, for which the Kaufmann Foundation and family contribute $750,000 of the total $1,850,000, opened in 1953. In 1962, Amy P. Frank donated $1,000,000 for a new wing, in memory of her parents, Samuel and Ettie Klein Frank. One year later, a house staff residence, costing $1,800,000, was opened. A parking garage was added in 1965. In 1978, Elizabeth May Beal, who had quietly amassed a fortune from investments made with her wages as a librarian, left $1,500,000 to the hospital. The house staff residence was named in her honor.

Montefiore Hospital had a number of short-term superintendents from the time of its origin until 1929, when Abraham Oseroff, who had been a board member, became acting director. He became director the following year and remained in that position until 1943, when he resigned in the wake of a controversy between the hospital and the Federation of Jewish Philanthropy concerning the role of the latter in the management of the hospital. Sidney Bergman was recruited to take this position in 1943 and remained there until his retirement in 1961. Irwin Goldberg, his long-time, second-in-command, became the director. Goldberg, in turn, retired in 1989 and turned the reins over to Daniel Kane for the last year of the hospital's existence.

As early as 1923, there were discussions concerning Montefiore's possible affiliation with the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, whose chancellor, John G. Bowman, was interested in establishing a strong teaching hospital. These suggestions received much opposition and little impetus until 1943, when Sidney Bergman, as one of the conditions of employment he presented

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to the Montefiore Hospital Board of Directors, requested an agreement to seek affiliation with the medical school. Finally, in 1952, a physical diagnosis course for University of Pittsburgh medical students was offered at Montefiore. In 1959, Pitt began sending students to Montefiore for training in general surgery. Montefiore's role in the teaching program of the medical school then expanded significantly, not only for medical students, but also for a variety of other allied health professionals. But not all programs expanded--because of financial and competitive pressures, the obstetrical and pediatric units of the hospital closed in 1963 and 1975, respectively.

Despite the fact that the hospital had hired full-time physicians in anesthesiology, radiology, and pathology during its early years, its medical staff consisted mostly of private practitioners. It was not until 1963 that Dr. Philip Troen was hired as physician-in-chief and chairman of the Department of Medicine. He was the first full-time physician in that department and was given a full professorship at the medical school. Six year later, Dr. Mark Ravitch was hired for an analogous position in the Department of Surgery. They recruited other full-time physicians and expanded the house staff, thus changing the role of Montefiore Hospital from a community teaching hospital to a university teaching hospital, drawing the hospital ever closer to the university.

In 1969, Montefiore Hospital joined the University Health Center of Pittsburgh (UHCP), which already included Presbyterian-University, Eye and Ear, Magee-Women's, and Children's Hospitals and the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. However, this association was not always a happy one, especially for the hospital's medical staff, many of whom felt that they were being treated as second-class citizens in respect to financial support, organizational control, development of specialty services, and faculty appointments and promotions. The entry of additional full-time physicians into a hospital which had previously served mainly private practitioners, the uncertain role of general practitioners in the university environment, and the sense that Montefiore was abandoning its position as the district's "Jewish" hospital, for patients and physicians alike, resulted in staff unrest, resignations, and several lawsuits. There were also many contentious interchanges between the hospital board of directors and UHCP. A number of new arrangements were suggested and abandoned, and new affiliation agreements were signed in 1977 and again in 1980. Montefiore Hospital retained some autonomy but gave up considerable control.

Montefiore Hospital continued to struggle to maintain its identity within the larger health center, but it was a losing battle. In 1990, the University purchased Montefiore for $145,000,000 of which about half was used to retire the hospital's bond issue. The rest was used to establish a new Montefiore Foundation, later renamed the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, which uses its assets to help provide medical care to the underprivileged in the general Pittsburgh community. Reflecting a change in the structure of the University Health Center of Pittsburgh and a change of its name to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the name of the hospital was changed first to Montefiore-University Hospital and later to UPMC-Montefiore. The other institutions within the medical center, in particular, Presbyterian-University Hospital, assumed much of Montefiore's role as an acute-care hospital. The physical structure that was Montefiore Hospital now also houses specialty outpatient facilities, offices, and other support facilities.

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Scope and Content Note

The Montefiore Hospital Records are housed in seventeen boxes and 30 bound scrapbooks and are arranged in seven series. Series have been designated for material on the hospital itself, the Institute of Research, Ladies Hospital Aid Society, Patient Services, Publications, the School of Nursing, and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The records include meeting minutes, financial reports, legal documents, staff rosters, lists of the trustees, organizational history, clippings, brochures, magazines, and newsletters. The records can provide researchers with insight into the organizational history of Montefiore Hospital and its related components.

Series I: Hospital (1911-1985)

These materials pertain directly to the institution itself rather than to any of its associated components, which constitute the series listed below. Series I is arranged into three subseries. Subseries 1 consists of the minutes of the Board of Trustees (known until 1918 as the Board of Directors). Subseries 2 pertains to the Subcommittees' minutes and Subseries 3 is comprised of miscellaneous documents relating to the hospital. The various minutes include the records of the meetings, documents submitted to the board, e.g., superintendent's reports, reports from subcommittees, patient statistics, lists of diseases treated, and annual reports from Montefiore Hospital components such as the School of Nursing, correspondence, and financial records. Subcommittees were formed and disbanded as needed. The constitution and by-laws, correspondence related to large donations, documentation of building programs, biographies of Moses Montefiore, for whom the hospital was named, and published material on the history of the hospital can also be found.

Series II: Institute of Research

The Institute of Research records include correspondence concerning the founding of the institute, fund raising, legal documents, patent applications, and lists of on-going research.

Series III: Ladies Hospital Aid Society

These papers include copies of documents that predate the founding of the hospital. The materials include documentation of donations for the hospital, examples of minutes and officer/membership lists from approximately the first decade of the society (c1899-c1910), minutes from the 1950's in which are recorded the organization's fund-raising activities and the purposes for which the money was spent, yearbooks, and documentation of the Professional Services Committee, volunteer activities, the sewing group and annual ball.

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Series IV: Patient Services

The materials relating to patient services include pamphlets concerning patient care, examples of services including pediatrics, ancillary, and home care, as well as information on technical facilities and employee relations.

Series V: Publications

The publications arranged in this series include Montefiore Hospital newsletters, brochures from various programs, scientific papers, microfilm of hospital records, and scrapbooks of clippings from the press from 1922 through 1982. The scrapbooks are probably the best source for information about the activities of the hospital and its role within the community because they include virtually all mentions of the hospital in newsprint sources: from the smallest notice in a social column of a patient's time spent there to the major events of the hospital's history for the given time period (1922-1982). The publications series differs from the others in that it contains some material that pertains to the institution as a whole, but was grouped because of the nature of the materials.

Series VI: School of Nursing

The material for the School of Nursing includes materials documenting the cape belonging to M.A. Gallagher that was separated to the museum division. School catalogs from c1930, 194243, 1946, and 1949-1950 offer details of the training program. Occasional alumnae association newsletters of the alumnae association (1942-1954) list, during the war years, those graduates who entered the service. The minutes of the Committee on School of Nursing deal primarily with the planning of social events.

Series VII: University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

These materials consist primarily of minutes of meetings of the medical school executive committee, which deal with administrative matters such as accreditation, faculty promotions, and long-range planning for the medical school. The faculty committee meeting minutes deal with issues more directly related to academic affairs, curriculum, and students. Miscellaneous materials relate to a variety of issues impacting and/or arising from the hospital. Examples include news clippings concerning anti-Semitism, war relief, and working plans (c1998) for the history book.

Provenance: These materials came in three accessions and were combined into one body of records in 1998.

Acc# 1997.0245 Gift of Lu Donnelly 1997.380 Gift of Lu Donnelly

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