African-American Hospitals and Health Care in Early Twentieth Century Indianapolis, Indiana, 1894-1917

Abstract

At the end of the nineteenth century, the African-American population of Indianapolis increased, triggering a need for health care for the new emigrants from the South. Within the black population, some individuals pursued medical degrees to become physicians. At the same time, advances in medical treatment—especially surgical operations—shifted the most common site of care from patients’ homes to hospitals. Professionally trained nurses, mostly white, began to replace family members or untrained African-American nurses who previously delivered care to Black patients. Barriers of racial segregation kept both the Black doctors and Black nurses from practicing in the municipal City Hospital in Indianapolis. To remedy this problem, the city's African-American leaders undertook establishing healthcare institutions with nurse training schools during the first few years of the twentieth century. This thesis argues that the healthcare institution-building that occurred in the early twentieth century offered opportunities for the practice of self-help in the Black community. The institutions also created a bridge for Black-white relations because the Black hospitals attracted the support of prominent white leaders. Good health and health care for the sick or injured were necessary to achieve racial uplift, and healthcare consumption became an indicator of social status and economic success. Racially segregated institutions afforded doctors and nurses a chance to increase their expertise and prove they were capable of functioning in the public hospital system. After a decade of working in separate institutions, the Black community prepared to push for full access to the city's tax-supported City Hospital as a civil right.