Isabella Garnett (August 22, 1872 – August 23, 1948) founded the first hospital in the city of
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston ( ) is a city, suburb of Chicago. Located in Cook County, Illinois, United States, it is situated on the North Shore along Lake Michigan. Evanston is north of Downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, ...
that would serve
African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
patients. After her hospital merged into Evanston's new Community Hospital in 1928, she served as superintendent of that institution for more than a decade. She remains one of Evanston's best-known historical African-American residents.
Garnett used her
maiden name
When a person (traditionally the wife in many cultures) assumes the family name of their spouse, in some countries that name replaces the person's previous surname, which in the case of the wife is called the maiden name ("birth name" is also use ...
professionally throughout her life, although she married twice. Her full name is sometimes given as Isabella Maude Garnett Butler Talley.
Early life and education
Garnett was one of the seven children of Daniel F. Garnett and Hannah B. McDuffin Garnett. Her parents were among the earliest African-American settlers in Evanston, settling in the community known as "Ridgeland Village" and co-founding the Second Baptist Church of Evanston.
Garnett did not graduate from high school, but did take classes in the 1890s at a business school in
Minneapolis
Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
; beginning in 1894, she worked and studied at Chicago's
Provident Hospital, the first black-owned hospital in the United States, established only a few years before. She received her nursing degree in 1895, and after working as a school nurse for two years, attended
Harvey Medical College from 1897 to 1899, receiving a premedical certificate. Armed with the certificate, she enrolled at Chicago's
College of Physicians and Surgeons and obtained her
MD in 1901, becoming one of the first African-American women MDs in Illinois.
Butler Sanitarium
Garnett initially worked on Chicago's
South Side, but moved back to Evanston by 1904. She married medical student Arthur Butler on January 5, 1907, practicing independently until his graduation from
Northwestern University Medical School
Northwestern or North-western or North western may refer to:
* Northwest, a direction
* Northwestern University, a private research university in Evanston, Illinois
** The Northwestern Wildcats, this school's intercollegiate athletic program
** ...
in 1909.
In 1910, Evanston-area hospitals became closed to the increasing African-American population for non-emergency care. To meet the resulting need, in 1914, Dr. Isabella Garnett and her husband, Dr. Arthur Butler, founded the Evanston Sanitarium and Training School on the upper floor of their 1918 Asbury Avenue residence in Evanston, Illinois. The Sanitarium focused on the community's most urgent needs, treating primarily acute diseases. The Evanston Sanitarium and Training School was the first African American medical center north of the Chicago loop, and it was only one of four area hospitals to accept African American patients and employ African American physicians.
[Evanston Women's History Project, "Evanston Women's History Timeline." Last modified 2011. Accessed July 17, 2012. http://evanstonwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/ewp-timeline.pdf]
Butler served as the surgeon, the
general practitioner, and also handled obstetrics and anesthesia.
He died suddenly in 1924.
Garnett subsequently managed the Sanitarium on her own, renaming it the "Butler Memorial Hospital" in his honor.
The need for medical care for the African-American residents of Evanston and nearby communities increased in the course of the
Great Migration, which lasted from 1910 to 1925 and brought a near-doubling of Evanston's black population.
The Great Migration also led to intensified segregation, which extended throughout almost all institutions, from schools to pool halls.
Garnett's three-room, two-story facility was the sole source of medical treatment for a community of some 5,000 African-Americans.
Community Hospital
In 1930, the hospital merged with The Booker T. Washington Association of Evanston and relocated to 2026 Brown Avenue, taking the name The Community Hospital of Evanston. Dr. Garnett married Baptist minister James Talley on February 5, 1930. Dr. Garnett served as the organization's superintendent until 1945. The Community Hospital is thus sometimes considered to be a continuation of the Sanitarium.
The Community Hospital began in a local doctor's large brick home, and initially boasted 18 beds.
A fifty-bed facility had originally been planned, but the advent of the
Great Depression put this goal out of reach. In order to raise funding for the hospital, the Women's Auxiliary of Community Hospital was formed in 1939 by hospital staff member
Dr. Elizabeth Webb Hill. Dr. Hill would later become the hospital's chief of staff, becoming the first African American woman to hold the position in Illinois.
[Evanston Women's History Project, "Evanston Women's History Timeline. "Last modified 2011. Accessed July 17, 2012. http://evanstonwomen.org/wp=content/uploads/2011/04/ewhp=timeline.pdf.]
In 1952, the Community Hospital opened a new facility in order to meet growing needs. In 1980, the hospital closed and the building was converted into an apartment complex for disabled adults. In 1986, the complex was dedicated as Hill Arboretum Apartments in honor of Dr. Hill.
The converted nonprofit apartment building for the disabled continues to feature pictures of Garnett and her successor Dr.Elizabeth Hill.
The ''Community Hospital of Evanston collection'' is held at th
Shorefront Legacy Centerin Evanston, Illinois. The collection was processed by th
Black Metropolis Research Consortium Color Curtain Processing Project
Later life and legacy
Garnett had hoped to continue in private practice after retiring from the hospital, but was compelled by poor health to retire completely in 1946. On August 23, 1948, one day past her 76th birthday, she died in the hospital she founded, of complications related to heart disease. Earlier in that year, a day of
National Negro Health Week had been dedicated in her honor.
The Community Hospital became a flashpoint of controversy in the 1950s, with tension between those pressing for integration rather than continued segregation of treatment facilities, and those who felt, as Garnett's successor Hill did, that "the sick can't wait."
The argument was won by Hill, and Community expanded to a 56-bed facility in 1952.
Although Evanston hospitals began to serve African-American patients later in the same decade,
Community continued to serve all races in Evanston until its closure in 1980.
In 1975, Evanston dedicated a 16-acre park in Garnett's name, the "Isabella G. Butler Park," often referred to as "Butler Park." The park is located on the south bank of the
North Shore Channel
The North Shore Channel is a drainage canal built between 1907 and 1910 to flush the sewage-filled North Branch of the Chicago River down the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. The sewage carrying duty has been largely taken over by the Chicago ...
,
near the site of Community Hospital.
Works cited
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References
External links
Black Metropolis Research Consortium Color Curtain Processing ProjectEvanston Women's History Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Garnett, Isabella Maude
1872 births
1948 deaths
People from Evanston, Illinois
Physicians from Illinois
20th-century African-American physicians
20th-century American physicians
African-American women physicians
American hospital administrators
University of Illinois College of Medicine alumni