Frances Elisabeth Crowell and the politics of nursing in Czechoslovakia after the first world war

Nursing History Review

Volumn 7, Issue , 1999, Pages 67-96

  Vickers, Elizabeth D ^a  

^a NONE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ART; ARTICLE; CZECHOSLOVAKIA; HISTORY; HUMAN; INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION; NURSE ADMINISTRATOR; NURSING EDUCATION; POLITICS; SOCIAL WORK; UNITED STATES; WAR;

CZECHOSLOVAKIA; EDUCATION, NURSING; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HUMANS; INTERNATIONAL EDUCATIONAL EXCHANGE; NURSE ADMINISTRATORS; POLITICS; PORTRAITS; SOCIAL WORK; UNITED STATES; WAR;

EID: 0032618325     PISSN: 10628061     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1891/1062-8061.7.1.67     Document Type: Article

References (91)

1. Robert H. Bremner, American Philanthropy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988), 111-115. The government's antitrust suit against Standard Oil in 1911 and the Rockefellers' difficulties in attaining a charter of incorporation as a philanthropic trust had cast a shadow of suspicion on the Foundation's charitable activities.
2. Annie Goodrich, New Haven, CT, to Gladys Adams, Paris, France, 8 August 1923, Yale University School of Nursing, Dean's Records, YRG 29-A, ser. V, box 254, folder 108, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, New Haven, Conn. The conflict between Goodrich and Crowell is discussed in greater detail in Elizabeth D. Vickers, "Frances Elisabeth Crowell: An Evaluation of a European Nursing Experience," 40-45. Unpublished manuscript.
3. Cindy Gurney, "Annie Warburton Goodrich," American Nursing: A Biographical Dictionary, ed. Vern L. Bullough, Olga Maranjian Church, Alice P. Stein (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1988), 145-49; and Esther A. Werminghaus, Annie W. Goodrich: Her Journey to Yale (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1950).
4. Cindy Gurney, "Annie Warburton Goodrich," American Nursing: A Biographical Dictionary, ed. Vern L. Bullough, Olga Maranjian Church, Alice P. Stein (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1988), 145-49; and Esther A. Werminghaus, Annie W. Goodrich: Her Journey to Yale (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1950).
5. Sister Mary McCaffrey, O.P., St. Mary's of the Springs, Columbus, Ohio, to the author, 14 October 1981.
6. Beverly A. Ford, Librarian/Archivist, St. Joseph's Hospital, Chicago, Illinois, to the author, 24 May 1983.
7. Marie D. Gorgas and Burton J. Hendrick, William Crawford Gorgas: His Life and Work (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1924), 65-66. Gorgas was an army physician at Fort Barrancas, Pensacola, from 1894-1897. For a discussion of the European influences in Pensacola, see James R. McGovern, The Emergence of a City in the Modern South: Pensacola 1900-1945 (DeLeon Springs, Fla.: E. O. Painter Printing Company, 1976), 1-15.
8. Marie D. Gorgas and Burton J. Hendrick, William Crawford Gorgas: His Life and Work (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1924), 65-66. Gorgas was an army physician at Fort Barrancas, Pensacola, from 1894-1897. For a discussion of the European influences in Pensacola, see James R. McGovern, The Emergence of a City in the Modern South: Pensacola 1900-1945 (DeLeon Springs, Fla.: E. O. Painter Printing Company, 1976), 1-15.
9. Incorporation Record Book #1, Escambia County Court House, Pensacola, Fla., 11 August 1900; and "St. Anthony's Hospital," The Daily News, Pensacola, Fla., 3 May 1901.
10. Vickers, "Frances Elizabeth Crowell," 6-11. It is important to note that Crowell, not her male partners at St. Anthony's, contacted the city council and the county commissioners and negotiated the contract. This was a bold step in a deep South city where women remained in the background. One can argue that Crowell's nursing school was primarily a source of cheap labor, but it represents Pensacola's first known attempt to provide some form of professional training for women. A Florida State Nurses Association Yearbook states that Sister Nellie Olafson, a graduate of St. Thomas Hospital, London, assisted Crowell in organizing the nursing school. However, no corroborating data have been located.
11. J. Y. Porter, "Yellow Fever in Tampa and Pensacola, Florida 1905," Report of the Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health and Marine Hospital Service for 1906-1907, 177; and Elizabeth D. Vickers, "F. Elisabeth Crowell: Pensacola's Pioneer Nurse," Journal of the Florida Medical Association, 70 (August 1983): 642-646.
12. J. Y. Porter, "Yellow Fever in Tampa and Pensacola, Florida 1905," Report of the Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health and Marine Hospital Service for 1906-1907, 177; and Elizabeth D. Vickers, "F. Elisabeth Crowell: Pensacola's Pioneer Nurse," Journal of the Florida Medical Association, 70 (August 1983): 642-646.
13. F. Elisabeth Crowell, "The Midwives of New York," Charities and the Commons 17 (January 1907): 667-677. "The Midwives of Chicago," Journal of the American Medical Association 50 (25 April 1908): 1346-50.
14. F. Elisabeth Crowell, "The Midwives of New York," Charities and the Commons 17 (January 1907): 667-677. "The Midwives of Chicago," Journal of the American Medical Association 50 (25 April 1908): 1346-50.
15. Crowell, "The Housing Situation in Pittsburgh," Charities and the Commons 21 (6 February 1909): 871-880; and "Painters' Row: The Study of a Group of Company Houses and Their Tenants," Charities and the Commons 21 (6 February 1909): 899-910. Some current research argues that Survey researchers were insensitive to cultural norms and imposed their concepts of ideal family life on the immigrants. See S. J. Kleinberg, "Seeking the Meaning of Life: The Pittsburgh Survey and the Family," in Pittsburgh Surveyed: Social Science and Social Reform in the Early Twentieth Century, ed. Maurine W. Greenwald and Margo Anderson (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996), 88-105.
16. Crowell, "The Housing Situation in Pittsburgh," Charities and the Commons 21 (6 February 1909): 871-880; and "Painters' Row: The Study of a Group of Company Houses and Their Tenants," Charities and the Commons 21 (6 February 1909): 899-910. Some current research argues that Survey researchers were insensitive to cultural norms and imposed their concepts of ideal family life on the immigrants. See S. J. Kleinberg, "Seeking the Meaning of Life: The Pittsburgh Survey and the Family," in Pittsburgh Surveyed: Social Science and Social Reform in the Early Twentieth Century, ed. Maurine W. Greenwald and Margo Anderson (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996), 88-105.
17. Crowell, "The Housing Situation in Pittsburgh," Charities and the Commons 21 (6 February 1909): 871-880; and "Painters' Row: The Study of a Group of Company Houses and Their Tenants," Charities and the Commons 21 (6 February 1909): 899-910. Some current research argues that Survey researchers were insensitive to cultural norms and imposed their concepts of ideal family life on the immigrants. See S. J. Kleinberg, "Seeking the Meaning of Life: The Pittsburgh Survey and the Family," in Pittsburgh Surveyed: Social Science and Social Reform in the Early Twentieth Century, ed. Maurine W. Greenwald and Margo Anderson (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996), 88-105.
18. Crowell, The Work of New York's Tuberculosis Clinics: A Critical Study of Its Own Work Made for the Association of Tuberculosis Clinics, May 1910, 6-8, 47-48, 60. In the Crowell papers in the Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC), there is much emphasis on a Foundation nurse's ability to speak the native language of the country in which she was serving.
19. Crowell, Tuberculosis Dispensary Method and Procedure, prepared for the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, n.p., 1916, 59.
20. James A. Miller, "Introduction" in Crowell, Tuberculosis Dispensary Method, 7-8.
21. As nurses and social workers struggled to define their respective areas of expertise, there was much overlapping of functions. See Margaret F. Byington, "The Inter-Dependence of the Nurse and the Social Worker," Public Health Nurse Quarterly 9 (January 1917): 21-29 (hereafter cited as PHNQ), and Mary S. Gardner, "The Public Health Nurse and the Social Worker," PHNQ 9 (April 1917): 107-112.
22. As nurses and social workers struggled to define their respective areas of expertise, there was much overlapping of functions. See Margaret F. Byington, "The Inter-Dependence of the Nurse and the Social Worker," Public Health Nurse Quarterly 9 (January 1917): 21-29 (hereafter cited as PHNQ), and Mary S. Gardner, "The Public Health Nurse and the Social Worker," PHNQ 9 (April 1917): 107-112.
23. Crowell, "A Life Income at Age Sixty," American Journal of Nursing 18 (October 1917): 31-33 (hereafter cited as AJN).
24. Crowell's personnel file at the RAC contains no data related to her appointment to the RF Tuberculosis Commission. Undoubtedly, she was highly recommended for the position by Dr. James Miller and Lawrence Veiller, president and secretary of ATC, respectively. Both subsequently recommended her for the 1922 appointment to study nursing conditions in Europe. Crowell, F. Elizabeth, Personal File, RAC RF, Folder #1.
25. One will note that there were long gaps between Crowell's visits to Czechoslovakia. This occurred because she was equally involved in studying nursing needs in several other European countries, consulting in England about leadership training programs in the country for nurses from the Continent, and periodically traveling to the United States for meetings with RF officers. She had three assistants to share in these responsibilities.
26. Joseph Rothchild, East Central Europe Between the Two World Wars (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1974), 73-95.
27. Alice Garrigue Masaryk, 1879-1966: Her Life as Recorded in Her Own Words and by Her Friends. Compiled by Ruth Crawford Mitchell, with Special Editing by Linda Vlasak, and an Introduction by René Wellek (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 1980), 43-52. Dr. Tomás G. Masaryk (1850-1937), Alice's father, had lectured in sociology at the University of Chicago during the summer of 1902.
28. Ibid., 96-98.
29. Ibid., xx-xxi. Alice's father, who had escaped to the Allied countries, was spearheading an independence movement for Czechoslovakia. Alice was arrested because she allegedly concealed some of his political papers.
30. Ibid., 94-99.
31. Ibid., 103-108. For a discussion of the typhus threat, see Alfred E. Cornebise, Typhus and Doughboys: The American Polish Typhus Relief Expedition, 1919-1921 (Newark, N.J.: University of Delaware Press, 1982), 13-18. The typhus epidemic was moving from Russia into Poland and posed serious public health problems for all of western Europe. Polish officials appealed to the Supreme Economic Council for assistance and Herbert Hoover organized a medical team that went into the infected area to treat and contain what he called, the "prairie fire."
32. Ibid., 103-108. For a discussion of the typhus threat, see Alfred E. Cornebise, Typhus and Doughboys: The American Polish Typhus Relief Expedition, 1919-1921 (Newark, N.J.: University of Delaware Press, 1982), 13-18. The typhus epidemic was moving from Russia into Poland and posed serious public health problems for all of western Europe. Polish officials appealed to the Supreme Economic Council for assistance and Herbert Hoover organized a medical team that went into the infected area to treat and contain what he called, the "prairie fire."
33. Ruth Crawford [Mitchell], "Pathfinding in Prague," The Survey 46 (11 June 1921): 323, 327-28.
34. Ibid., 327-332. As early as 1918, the RF expressed concern about who was the best qualified person to work with physicians in the developing field of public health. The Goldmark Report concluded: "We have sought during the past twenty years for a missionary to carry the message of health into each individual home; and in America we have found this messenger of health in the public health nurse." Josephine Goldmark, Nursing and Nursing Education in the United States (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1923), 8.
35. Ibid., 327-332. As early as 1918, the RF expressed concern about who was the best qualified person to work with physicians in the developing field of public health. The Goldmark Report concluded: "We have sought during the past twenty years for a missionary to carry the message of health into each individual home; and in America we have found this messenger of health in the public health nurse." Josephine Goldmark, Nursing and Nursing Education in the United States (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1923), 8.
36. Crawford [Mitchell], "Pathfinding in Prague," 331. It is possible that Crawford feared the role of the social worker in public health might diminish in view of the RF's ongoing study to determine the ideal educational background of a public health worker. Also, she was aware of the low esteem of the nurse in Czechoslovakia, was a loyal friend of Alice Masaryk, and respected Masaryk's concepts of social service. Therefore, she would certainly work to gain the RF support for Alice Masaryk's proposals regarding public health.
37. Crawford Mitchell, Alice Garrigue Masaryk, 115-121.
38. Ibid., 117.
39. Clara D. Noyes, "Department of Red Cross Nursing," The American Journal of Nursing 20 (November 1919): 136-37 and 22 (March 1922): 445-448 (hereafter cited as AJN). Noyes noted in a report from Prague that Alice Masaryk had arranged for some sixty third-year female medical students to take nursing courses under the American Red Cross nurses in order to better understand the profession and recognize that it was not "a degrading piece of work." It is difficult to reconcile this positive attitude about nursing with subsequent perceptions of the nurse as a servant.
40. Clara D. Noyes, "Department of Red Cross Nursing," The American Journal of Nursing 20 (November 1919): 136-37 and 22 (March 1922): 445-448 (hereafter cited as AJN). Noyes noted in a report from Prague that Alice Masaryk had arranged for some sixty third-year female medical students to take nursing courses under the American Red Cross nurses in order to better understand the profession and recognize that it was not "a degrading piece of work." It is difficult to reconcile this positive attitude about nursing with subsequent perceptions of the nurse as a servant.
41. Marion G. Parsons to Selskar Gunn, 6 December 1921, and Gunn to Edwin R. Embree, 9 December 1921, RAC RF 1.1-712-5-41. In October 1921, Gunn had requested the report from Parsons on instructions from Embree (1890-1950), Secretary of the RF. There is no correspondence in the Crowell papers to support the supposition that Parsons and the Prague State School administration had approached the Foundation for assistance. However, Gunn's and Embree's subsequent urging for Crowell to go to Czechoslovakia to do a study on nursing for the Foundation leaves little doubt that the supposition is highly possible.
42. Svazek Třetí, Deset let čcskoslovenské republiky [Ten Years of Czechoslovak Republic], Vol. 3, ed., Františch Ebel, (Prague: Státnf tiskárna, 1928), 172-74, trans. Albert V. Drlicka. According to historian Paul Weindling, the RF believed that a sound public health program would contribute to political and social stability in postwar Europe, and would eliminate Germany and Austria as models for medical education. For that purpose, Selskar Gunn spent twenty months in Prague setting up the State Institute of Hygiene which the RF funded in part. It was a frustrating experience because government ministries, not universities, controlled public health. Gunn charged that the personality conflicts and political tensions within the ministries undermined the scientific mission of the Institute. Paul Weindling, "Public Health and Political Stabilisation: The Rockefeller Foundation in Central and Eastern Europe Between the Two World Wars," Minerva 31 (Autumn 1993): 255-56, 262-63.
43. Svazek Třetí, Deset let čcskoslovenské republiky [Ten Years of Czechoslovak Republic], Vol. 3, ed., Františch Ebel, (Prague: Státnf tiskárna, 1928), 172-74, trans. Albert V. Drlicka. According to historian Paul Weindling, the RF believed that a sound public health program would contribute to political and social stability in postwar Europe, and would eliminate Germany and Austria as models for medical education. For that purpose, Selskar Gunn spent twenty months in Prague setting up the State Institute of Hygiene which the RF funded in part. It was a frustrating experience because government ministries, not universities, controlled public health. Gunn charged that the personality conflicts and political tensions within the ministries undermined the scientific mission of the Institute. Paul Weindling, "Public Health and Political Stabilisation: The Rockefeller Foundation in Central and Eastern Europe Between the Two World Wars," Minerva 31 (Autumn 1993): 255-56, 262-63.
44. In a meeting with George E. Vincent (1864-1941), President of the RF, Crowell argued that one reason for sending nurse-fellows to study in the U.S. was because of "the pressure brought to bear by returned IHB fellows . . . [who] were anxious to have nurses, who would subsequently work under their direction, trained in the same methods in which they had been trained." Crowell Memo, "Conference with GEV, Paris, 7 July 1927," 13 July 1927, RAC RF 1.1-700-20-141.
45. Crowell, "Memorandum Re Study of Sick Nursing & Health Visiting in Czechoslovakia." 19 May 1922, RAC RF 1.1-712-5-40, 1-2. Since Crowell had worked previously with some of the Americans on the Prague Survey staff, she probably reviewed their published data. However, her critique of hospital conditions and nursing care is obviously that of a person with a nursing background and reflects her own personal observations.
46. Ibid., 2-5,11-12.
47. Ibid., 6. Historian Barbara Reinfeld writes that "although equality of genders was a constitutional right in the new Czechoslovak state, the realization of it was far behind . . . [because] the progressive ideas and rhetoric of men such as Masaryk had not obliterated traditional views of women as inherently inferior to men." Barbara Reinfeld, "Frantiska Plamfnková (1875-1942): Czech Feminist and Patriot," paper presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Convention 1995, Washington, D.C., 20.
48. Crowell, "Memorandum Re Study of Sick Nursing," 11.
49. Ibid., 6-8, 13-14.
50. Ibid., 8.
51. Ibid., 3, 9-10.
52. Ibid., 10.
53. Ibid.,12-13.
54. Ibid., 15-17, 29-31.
55. Ibid., 39-43, 47. The German section of the State School at Prague had a one-year public health visiting course from 1917-1920. Later, many of the graduates had returned to acquire an additional year of training in hospital nursing. This strengthened Crowell's recommendation regarding a combined course. However, in the era of strained Sudeten German-Czech relations, there might have been some ambivalence about a nursing education concept of German derivation.
56. Ibid., 41.
57. Crowell to Vincent, 17 June 1922, RAC RF 1.1-700-19-137.
58. Crowell to Embree, 23 May 1925, RAC RF 1.1-700-19-139.6; Hynec Pelc to Crowell, 16 June 1925 and Crowell to Pelc, 26 June 1925. RAC RF 1.1-712-5-41. Crowell informed Pelc in this June communication that Goodrich and Lillian Clayton (1876-1930), Director of the nursing school at Philadelphia General Hospital, would be arriving in Prague shortly to visit the State School, the Institute of Hygiene, and various officials in the Ministry of Health. Crowell's assistant, Adams, would accompany them. The predominantly negative report about Crowell's work that Goodrich and Clayton subsequently gave to Embree was based on this visit to Czechoslovakia and other European countries.
59. Ernest P. Bicknell, "Doctors Courageous: Serbia, the Battleground Not Only of the Balkan Armies But of Physicians and Nurses." The Survey 37 (7 October 1916): 6-14.
60. Pelc to Crowell, 20 May 1925, and 16 June 1925, RAC RF 1.11-712-5-41; and Crowell to Embree, 23 May 1925, RAC RF 1.1-700-19-139. Pelc was also the Director of the College of Social Care and Associate Professor of Social Medicine at Charles University.
61. Crowell to Embree, 18 August 1925, RAC RF 1.1-712-5-41.
62. Ibid.
63. Crowell to Embree, 25 June 1926, RAC RF 1.1-712-5-41.
64. Crowell to Embree, "Czechoslovakia, October 1925." 25 June 1926, RAC RF 1.1-712-5-41,1.
65. Ibid., "Czechoslovakia," 1-3.
66. Crowell to Embree, 2 September 1926, RAC RF 1.1-712-5-41.
67. "Minutes of the Rockefeller Foundation," 5 November 1926, RAC RF 1.1-712-5-41. As Director of Education of Nurses and Health Visitors in the Division of Studies, Crowell was directly responsible to Embree. The documents used in this study indicate that she prepared her own budgets and submitted them to Embree for formal approval, but there is no evidence that he ever challenged her well-planned proposals. It is reasonable to assume that Crowell discussed her budget proposals with Selskar Gunn because they worked closely together.
68. Daniel E. Miller, " 'The Countryside is One Family': Antonin Svehla, The Republicans, and the Building of Political Compromise in Czechoslovakia, 1918-1933," 419. Unpublished Manuscript.
69. The New York Times, 19, 20 Januaiy 1922; 1 April 1922; and 20 September 1922.
70. Ibid., 3 March 1922, and 26 March 1922.
71. Crowell, "Officer's Diaries," 9 June 1927, RAC RF, RG 12.1, 34-35.
72. Ibid., 33-36.
73. Ibid., 36.
74. Ibid., 36-37.
75. Ibid., 35, 37.
76. Ibid., 10 June 1927, 38-39.
77. Ibid., 13 June 1927, 41.
78. Ibid., 11 June 1927, 39-40.
79. Ibid., 42-43.
80. George E. Vincent to Richard M. Pearce, 29 June 1927, RAC RF 1.1-712-5-41.
81. Crowell, "Officer's Diaries," 25 March 1929, 38. Pelc charged that Alice Masaryk had pressured him into taking the.directorship of the school.
82. Ibid., 25-26 March 1929, 38-40.
83. Ibid., 26 March 1929, 40-41.
84. Ibid., 41.
85. Ibid., 27-28 March, 1929, 42-43. Crowell noted that President Masaryk usually joined her and Alice for lunch, but generally excused himself at the end of the meal. However, on 28 March 1929, he remained with them during their two hours of discussions.
86. Crowell, "Officer's Diaries," 21 October 1929, 140.
87. Crowell, "Memorandum re Proposed School of Nurses for Public Health and Social Welfare to be Created in the State Institute of Public Hygiene, Prague," 17 October 1930, RAC RF 1.1-712-5-41,1. The League of Nations Health Organization (LNHO) had an ambitious agenda to modernize public health systems, particularly in Europe where new states struggled with complex social and medical problems in the postwar era. The agenda, which included assistance in training members of the public health team, received generous financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation. Thus, it was expedient for Czech officials to conclude negotiations for a nurses training program. For a discussion of the work of the LHNO see Martin Davis Dubin, "The League of Nations Health Organization," in International Health Organizations and Movements, 1918-1939, ed. Paul Weindling (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 56-80.
88. Crowell, "Memorandum re Proposed School of Nurses for Public Health and Social Welfare to be Created in the State Institute of Public Hygiene, Prague," 17 October 1930, RAC RF 1.1-712-5-41,1. The League of Nations Health Organization (LNHO) had an ambitious agenda to modernize public health systems, particularly in Europe where new states struggled with complex social and medical problems in the postwar era. The agenda, which included assistance in training members of the public health team, received generous financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation. Thus, it was expedient for Czech officials to conclude negotiations for a nurses training program. For a discussion of the work of the LHNO see Martin Davis Dubin, "The League of Nations Health Organization," in International Health Organizations and Movements, 1918-1939, ed. Paul Weindling (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 56-80.
89. Ibid., 2.
90. Kaiyi Chen, "Missionaries and the Early Development of Nursing in China," in Nursing History Review 4(1996): 143.
91. Hazel E. Goff, "Preparing For Postwar Work Abroad: Suggestions Drawn From Experience in European Schools of Nursing," AJN43 (February 1943): 170. In 1927, Hazel Goff resigned from her position as Director of the Red Cross Training School for Nurses in Sofia, Bulgaria, and became Crowell's assistant.