New Digital Collections are now online - The Nursery and Child's Hospital Annual Reports, 1854-1909 and the New York Nursery and Child's Hospital Annual Reports, 1910-1934

We've completed the digitization of the annual reports of two more antecedent institutions of NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center that are now accessible online via the Internet Archive; the Nursery and Child's Hospital Annual Reports, 1854-1909 and the New York Nursery and Child's Hospital Annual Reports, 1910-1934. The digitization was made possible from a micro-grant from the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO).

The Nursery and Child's Hospital
The Nursery for the Children of Poor Women opened in 1854 on St. Mark's Place (in Manhattan) to provide day care for children of wet-nurses and other working parents. Originally, its purpose was to aid "worthy" working women, and proof of marriage and good character of the mother were required for admission. Rates charged were a percentage of the mother's income, and any child not picked up at the end of the day was sent to the city's Alms House. The focus of the institution shifted quickly from day care to medical care of neglected and abandoned infants and of poor pregnant women. In 1857, the name was changed to the Nursery and Child's Hospital. After a short stay in temporary quarters on Sixth Avenue, the hospital moved to a permanent location at corner of 51st Street and Lexington Avenue in 1859, where pediatric and lying-in facilities (childbirth facilities) were provided. It also maintained a Country Branch for children 4 years of age and older on Staten Island from 1870 to 1905. The Nursery and Child's Hospital was also known for its gala charity balls and other fundraising events. In 1910, the Nursery and Child's Hospital merged with the New York Infant Asylum to form the New York Nursery and Child's Hospital.

The Nursery and Child's Hospital annual reports include medical reports, lists of officers and managers, lists of physicians, donation lists, financial reports, secretary's reports, constitution, bylaws, rules, and photographs. The 45th Annual Report (1898) details the annual yield of vegetables grown at the hospital's Country Branch on Staten Island link to page in annual report. The garden provided nearly all of the vegetables for the hospital's Country Branch and City House for the entire year. The yields for 1898 (tomatoes, potatoes, rutabagas, carrots, cabbage, sweet potatoes, sweet corn and so much more) should inspire current urban farmers in the city.

Here is a photo from our Photograph Collection of the Country Branch of the Nursery and Child's Hospital on Staten Island circa 1890:

The New York Nursery and Child's Hospital
The New York Nursery and Child's Hospital was founded in 1910 through the consolidation of the Nursery and Child's Hospital and the New York Infant Asylum. It maintained buildings at Lexington Avenue and 51st Street and at Amsterdam Avenue and 61st Street until 1913, when the Amsterdam branch was expanded and the Lexington branch was closed. Like its predecessors, the New York Nursery and Child's Hospital focused its attention on the care of women and children. It maintained a lying-in hospital, a hospital for sick children, a nursery and home for foundlings and poor children, a boarding-out service to place children in homes, an obstetrical department for at-home care, and a training program for nurses and nursery maids. It also continued the tradition of annual charity balls for fundraising, which was started in 1856 by the Nursery and Child's Hospital. In 1934, the New York Nursery and Child's Hospital merged with New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, with the exception of its foster home department, which continued functioning separately.

Also in the Medical Center Archives are other materials documenting the Nursery and Child's Hospital and the New York Nursery and Child's Hospital. We hold admission and discharge records, account books, minutes, casebooks, charity ball records, donation records, financial records, medical reports, and necropsy (autopsy) reports.

A helpful way to access our digital collections on the Internet Archive is to browse by subject/keywords. Up next for digitization are the annual reports of the New York Asylum for Lying-In Women, 1824-1899 and more of the Society of Lying-In Hospital of the City of New-York annual reports, 1932-1950, documenting the period when the Lying-In Hospital and the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center became affiliated in 1932 and the eventual merger in 1947, forming the Hospital's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.