American Women's Hospitals

Variant names

Biographical notes:

The American Women's Hospitals (AWH) developed from the War Service Committee of the Medical Women's National Association (later, American Medical Women's Association (AMWA)) in 1917 to provide, register and finance American women physicians for war work; offer medical and emergency relief to refugees; and, later, to provide international public health service. In 1959, AWH became an independent agency and remained such until 1982 when it re-merged with AMWA.

In the earliest years of the AWHS, from 1917 to 1920, the major arenas of activity were in France, Albania, Greece and the Near East. AWHS personnel labored extensively in the last three areas throughout the 1920s and 1930s, and added services to Serbia, Russia, Asia and the rural United States. The outbreak of World War II returned their attentions to Western Europe as projects of emergency medical relief were made necessary in war zones. In the post-war period, the AWHS worked to shift administrative and professional duties to the home country, financing the training and employment of native female personnel in China, Japan, Haiti, India, Southeast Asia and the Philippines. More recent AWHS ventures focused on Indians in North and South America, and rural residents of the southeastern United States, curtailing emergency medical services in favor of on-going prevention programs. For example, AWHS was involved in the study and prevention of pellagra in Spartanburg, South Carolina between 1929 and the mid 1950s. Generally, AWHS's efforts focused on emergency medical care, maternity and children's welfare, preventive care programs and the coordination of social and economic care with medical aid.

From the guide to the American Women's Hospitals Service photographs, 1917-1982, (Drexel University: College of Medicine Legacy Center)