Location: R.4.A.4.1.1
The FAMU Hospital first started in 1911 as a sanitorium supervised by Nurse Virginia Hilyer. For many years this clinic served the student population and when an annex was added to the hospital in 1922 services were opened to the larger Tallahassee community, with services provided by doctors from all over the city to all ethnicities. African American physicians in Tallahassee also served at the hospital including, Drs. William G. Gunn, Alpha Omega Campbell, and L.H.B. Foote.
It was under L. H. B. Foote's directorship that the first annual Medical Clinic was hosted on campus in 1926. The Medical Clinic was created to host informational presentations and networking between medical professionals and education groups and later fused with Florida A&M Clinical Association. The clinical association's focus on sharing knowledge, resources, and training opportunities to medical professionals throughout Florida, Georgia, and Alabama added to the overall goal of getting modern medical care to Black patients.
The 1930s saw several initiatives blooming at the campus hospital; continued expansions to the hospital, the campaign to add a nursing training facility, and partnerships with the Florida State Board of Health to host midwife training workshops all created an air of growth, advancement, and modernity. It took twenty ear and two university presidents (J.R.E. Lee and George W. Gore) to establish the full hospital and nurse training unit on the basis of the already existing hospital that would serve African Americans from Tallahassee and surrounding counties.
It took federal grants, support from the Tallahassee City Commission, and a capital campaign that included donations from various civic leagues and from a stymied effort to build a Black hospital in Jacksonville to gather the $2,000,000 needed for the facility but finally it was done. The grand opening was opening liberally celebrated.
Through the 1960s, the FAMU Hospital continued to serve the community but advancements in civil rights for African Americans had a surprising adverse affect--in the effort to integrate both Tallahassee Memorial Hospital and FAMU Hospital both institutions were issued orders to integrate, which should not have been a problem for FAMU Hospital since it had always employed both Black and White doctors and been open to all patients. However, withdrawal of state and federal financial support for the hospital and accusations of mismanagement of funds began to compromise it's efficacy and by the end of the decade plans were already in motion for its closure. The hospital officially closed in 1971 and in 1981 the building housing the hospital was remodeled and rededicated as the Foote-Hilyer Administration Building, containing the University's administrative offices and Student Health Services.
This collection comprises primarily correspondence, reports, and publications of the FAMU Hospital Fund Committee--tasked with raising and organizing funds for the hospital expansion of 1951, and administrative records of the Hospital Advisory Board--tasked with governing the FAMU Hospital during its existence from 1951 to 1971. Much of the correspondence is to or from Dr. George W. Gore, FAMU's eighth University President. Other figures of note are then-Senator Leroy Collins, who served as the Chairman of the Advisory Board; Dr. LH.B. Foote who also served on the Hospital Advisory Board. Other organizations and offices whose activities are recorded in this collection are FAMU Clinical Association; the Board of Regents; the Board of Control; Leon County; and the City of Tallahassee as it relates to the establishment, management, and dissolution of the FAMU Hospital.
Some of the significant topics represented in these files are the complexities of desegregation and integration; Black hospital management; public health; nurse training and education; professional development; fundraising.
Items were arranged in series by type of communication object, sorted into folders chronologically, and each series arranged alphabetically. Attachments are listed alphanumerically starting with the item number of the document they were originally attached to. All hardware was removed and documents sleeved. Some documents will require flattening, cleaning, and other conservation efforts.
