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Abstract
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The collection contains the primary source material for a thorough institutional history of a major women's service organization that spans three-quarters of a century. Issues of professionalization, volunteerism, and social and occupational networks as they relate to women's professional and social careers are well-documented. The AWH records provide the sources to examine a classic example of a woman's association that self-consciously bridged private and public domains, actively sought to bring the resources of public associations and the state to the aid of individuals in their own communities, and, in those countries which most severely relegated women to the private household, offered women access to a professional and public career.
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Additional Description
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The Records of the American Women's Hospitals contain several types of historical material, cover a wide geographical area, and extend over a sixty-five year period. In the earliest years of the AWH, 1917-1920, the major arenas of activity were France, Albania, Greece, and the Near East. AWH personnel continued to labor extensively in the last three areas during the 1920s and 1930s and added services to Serbia, Russia, Asia, and the rural United States. The outbreak of World War II returned their attention to Western Europe as projects of emergency medical relief were made necessary in war zones. In the post-war period, the AWH worked to shift administrative and professional duties to the home country in Greece and France, and financed the training and employment of native female personnel in China, Japan, Haiti, India, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines. The most recent AWH ventures have 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.
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