Rochester Municipal Hospital

Introduction

When plans were announced early in the 1920s for construction of a medical school and teaching hospital at the University of Rochester, George Washington Goler (1864-1940), Health Officer of the City of Rochester, rethought his own plans for a new city hospital.

“In spite of the fact that in 1922 blueprints were in being for a new hospital on Waring Road, Dr. Goler came to [University] President [Rush] Rhees with a proposal to build this hospital adjoining the Strong Memorial Hospital. This plan gained the enthusiastic support of President Rhees, Mr. [George] Eastman, Mayors Edgerton and VanZandt, and Dr. [George Hoyt] Whipple. Some time and study were given to a legal contract covering the functional and physical union of the two hospitals … As part of this contract the University of Rochester made available to the City a considerable tract of land immediately adjacent to the east of the location occupied by the Strong Memorial Hospital. All service facilities such as kitchen, laundry, operating rooms, out-patient service, laboratories, X-ray and autopsy facilities, stores and shops, were combined and located in the main building.” (University of Rochester. The quarter century: a review of the first twenty-five years, 1925-1950. Rochester, N.Y., 1950, p. 18-19)

Strong Memorial Hospital opened on 4 January 1926. Patients were transferred from the existing Waring Road facility to the newly completed Rochester Municipal Hospital on 30 July 1926. The cooperative relationship between the University and the City endured until 1963, when the City of Rochester ceded Municipal Hospital to the University.

This collection includes the original articles of agreement between the City of Rochester and the University (Box 1, Folders 1-5); documentation regarding transfer of the Municipal Hospital to the City in 1963 (Box 1, Folders 20-21); operational and financial reports issued annually between 1929 and 1956; and other material. The collection consists of three boxes occupying 1.5 linear feet.

Lobby and switchboard of the Rochester Municipal Hospital, 1926

Organization of the Collection

Box One

• Folder 1: Articles of agreement (1922)
• Folder 2: Correspondence regarding agreement on Rochester Municipal Hospital (1922)
• Folder 3: Agreement between the University of Rochester and the City of Rochester, 3rd draft (Jul 1922)
• Folder 4: An act to amend the charter (Feb 1923)
• Folder 5: Agreement between the University of Rochester and the City of Rochester (Apr 1923)
• Folder 6: Typescript of H. Marks’ article in the Democrat & Chronicle on “mental cases” at Rochester Municipal Hospital (May 1923)
• Folder 7: Agreement between the University of Rochester and the City of Rochester on neuro-psychiatry services at Rochester Municipal Hospital (Jul 1927)
• Folder 8: Correspondence and memoranda (1927-1929)
• Folder 9: Correspondence (1932, 1938)
• Folder 10: Agreement between the University of Rochester and the City of Rochester (Dec 1937)
• Folder 11: Physicians’ petition against renewal of the agreement (Dec 1937)
• Folder 12: Statement issued by the University of Rochester regarding renewal of the agreement (Dec 1937)
• Folder 13: Correspondence from Raymond Thompson, Treasurer of the University, to George H. Whipple, regarding the Rochester Municipal Hospital (Feb 1938)
• Folder 14: “A statement by the University of Rochester to the citizens of Rochester” (Dec 1937?)
• Folder 15: Newspaper clippings regarding Rochester Municipal Hospital (Dec 1937-Jan 1939)
• Folder 16: Agreement between the University of Rochester and the City of Rochester (Apr 1948)
• Folder 17: Agreement between the University of Rochester and the City of Rochester (Nov 1950)
• Folder 18: Agreement between the University of Rochester and the City of Rochester (Oct 1958)
• Folder 19: “Informational memorandum – relationships between the Rochester Municipal Hospital and the University of Rochester” (Dec 1961)
• Folder 20: “Statement on the Rochester Municipal Hospital by the University of Rochester” (Feb 1962)
• Folder 21: Transfer of the Rochester Municipal Hospital to the University of Rochester (1963)
• Folder 22: “Survey and plan for rehabilitation of City Hospital prepared for University of Rochester, December 1962. Wood & Tower, Cos Cob, Connecticut”
• Folder 23: Cost distribution and analysis (Dec 1929)
• Folder 24: Cost distribution and analysis (1930)
• Folder 25: Cost distribution and analysis (1931)
• Folder 26: Cost distribution and analysis (1932)

Ambulance shared by Strong Memorial and Rochester Municipal hospitals in driveway of the latter, 1940

Box Two

• Folder 1: Analysis of cost (1933)
• Folder 2: Cost distribution and analysis (Jan-Jul 1933)
• Folder 3: Cost distribution and analysis (Jul-Dec 1933)
• Folder 4: Cost distribution and analysis (1934)
• Folder 5: Analysis of cost (1935)
• Folder 6: Cost distribution and analysis (1935)
• Folder 7: Analysis of cost (1936)
• Folder 8: Analysis of cost (1937)
• Folder 9: Cost distribution and analysis (Dec 1937)
• Folder 10: Analysis of cost (1938)
• Folder 11: Cost distribution and analysis (1938)
• Folder 12: Analysis of cost (1939)
• Folder 13: Cost distribution and analysis (Dec 1939)
• Folder 14: Analysis of cost (1941)

Box Three

• Folder 1: Analysis of cost (1943)
• Folder 2: Analysis of cost (1944)
• Folder 3: Analysis of cost (1946)
• Folder 4: Cost distribution and analysis (dec 1946)
• Folder 5: Analysis of cost (1947)
• Folder 6: Cost distribution and analysis (Dec 1948)
• Folder 7: Cost distribution and analysis (Dec 1949)
• Folder 8: Annual report (1950)
• Folder 9: Cost distribution and analysis (Dec 1950)
• Folder 10: Cost distribution and analysis (Nov 1951)
• Folder 11: Operational summary (1951)
• Folder 12: Annual report (1952)
• Folder 13: Annual report (1953)
• Folder 14: Annual report (1954)
• Folder 15: Annual report (1955)
• Folder 16: Annual report (1956)