The Committee of Management and the Montreal Maternity Hospital, 1893-1906 Laura J

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Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada Le Journal de la Société pour l'étude de l'architecture au Canada

“Strengthening their Hands” The Committee of Management and the Montreal Maternity Hospital, 1893-1906 Laura J. O’Brien

Women and Architecture Volume 44, numéro 1, 2019

URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1066280ar DOI : https://doi.org/10.7202/1066280ar

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Citer cet article O’Brien, L. J. (2019). “Strengthening their Hands”: The Committee of Management and the Montreal Maternity Hospital, 1893-1906. Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada / Le Journal de la Société pour l'étude de l'architecture au Canada, 44 (1), 21–30. https://doi.org/10.7202/1066280ar

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“STRENGTHENING THEIR HANDS” The Committee of Management and the Montreal Maternity Hospital, 1893-19061

LAURA J. O’BRIEN is a Ph.D. candidate in > Laura J. O’Brien architecture at McGill University in Montreal. Her research investigates the intersections of gender and class in benevolent institutions in Montreal at the turn of the twentieth century. Her research interests include gender and he Montreal Maternity Hospital (MMH) architecture, feminist human geography, cultural Toriginated as a safe place for vulne- landscape studies, and the history of emotions. rable women to give birth. Montreal des- perately needed such an institution in the She holds an M.A. in Art History from Concordia nineteenth century: the death rate in the University. Her research is supported by the 1890s was one of the highest in the world, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and in 1897, infant mortality accounted for (SSHRC) and the Fonds de recherche du Québec almost half of the total deaths in the city.2 – Société et Culture (FRQSC). She was a recipient Between 1897 and 1911, one out of three of the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) babies died within a year of being born.3 Collection Research Grant Doctoral Residency in The MMH moved several times throughout the summer of 2018. its long history. It originated as a small dwelling, moved to a repurposed home, then to a purpose-built institution, and finally settled on Mount Royal, next to the Royal Victoria Hospital. This paper focuses on the final two iterations of the MMH: the hospital at 93 St. Urbain Street (which I will refer to as the old hospital) and the hospital built in 1905 by prominent architect Andrew Thomas Taylor at St. Urbain and Prince Arthur streets (the new hospital). Specifically, I investigate the role of the all- female Committee of Management in the realization of the new hospital, between the years 1893 and 1906. I mobilize alternative sources such as photographs, fire insurance maps, and Minute Books to gain insight into the spatial organization of the hospital, and, most importantly, in how the women of the Committee experienced this space.4

Histories of the MMH either focus on the medical men who practised at the hospital, celebrate the charitable contributions of the institution, or delineate the transformation of the hospital through techno- logical advancements and infrastructural shifts.5 Building on this research, I investigate the material, spatial, and geogra- phic transition from an old repurposed FIG. 1. CITY OF MONTREAL, SHOWING DIFFERENT WARDS. | TRACED BY AUTHOR FROM THE 1881 GOAD ATLAS.

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dwelling in a working-class area of the analysis of the hospital’s archival docu- The affluent municipalities that surrounded city, to a new purpose-built hospital in an ments delineates the transition of the the city, such as Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, upper-class location. Based on a compara- MMH from charitable institution to obs- Outremont, and the Town of Mount Royal, tive architectural analysis of the old and tetric medical hospital through changes did not think it was necessary to share new hospitals as well as a close reading of in management, medical advancements, their resources.16 Therefore, Protestant sources written by the Committee, I argue and patient demographics. Kenneally’s and Catholic religious organizations took that the new hospital emerges as a site rigorous investigation of the MMH is the it upon themselves to care for Montreal’s within which the all-female Committee foundation for my spatial and architectural poor. The result was a well-intentioned but asserted their authority through spatial analysis of the hospital. Architectural histo- apparently disorganized network of bene- tactics and alterations to the new hospi- rian Annmarie Adams has investigated in volent institutions that helped the most tal.6 Further, situating these two hospitals detail the architectural and material divi- vulnerable throughout the city.17 These within the visual and architectural land- sions between private and public patients institutions had disparate approaches and scape of nineteenth-century Montreal in the Royal Victoria Women’s Pavilion, various functions but were united by three opens up a discussion of the intersection where the MMH moved in 1926.11 Neither a characteristics: they were mostly run by of class and gender within the history of domestic residence nor a bourgeois hotel- women, they were segregated by religion,18 the Committee of the MMH. The transi- like hospital, the new MMH was a transitio- and they all sought to provide some res- tion from old to new also precipitated a nal space within which the women of the pite to women and children from the brutal shift in patient demographics, from wor- Committee consolidated their identities as conditions of industrial capitalism. king-class women to bourgeois women.7 middle-class charitable women. The presence of both impoverished and THE COMMITTEE elite women under the same roof pres- MONTREAL IN THE NINETEENTH OF MANAGEMENT ented challenges and a crisis in identity for CENTURY the middle-class managers of the MMH. Starting in 1843 (the same year that the I contend that eventually their interest Over the nineteenth century, Montreal’s hospital was founded), the Committee in their working-class charges waned in landscape underwent major changes. In gathered monthly at meetings chaired favour of the upper-class clientele. 1840, Montreal incorporated as a city, and by the First Directress, J.G. Gardiner. This the faubourg plan of the city transitioned group of women was one part of a two- My aim is not to subject these agents of into wards (fig. 1).12 In 1850, a major fire tiered governing system. While an infor- social reform to anachronistic standards of destroyed many houses and establish- mal board of laymen and physicians from feminist activism or denigrate the tireless ments. This resulted in a shift in housing McGill University’s Faculty of Medicine work that the Committee contributed to typology, from affordable single-family also oversaw the management of the the benevolent network of Montreal.8 The wooden dwellings to more expensive institution, they demonstrated little inte- Committee cared about the wellbeing of multi-family stone dwellings.13 Between rest in this role during the early days of their patients, and their actions reflected 1840 and 1890, Montreal’s population the hospital.19 Indeed, the minutes of the what they thought was “good, right and boomed, increasing by 290 per cent.14 monthly meetings, recorded by Florence necessary,”9 both for their patients and By the end of the nineteenth century, Drummond, demonstrate that Dr. James the institution. My goal is to investigate the construction of the railway and the Chalmers Cameron—the chief obstetrician the articulation of class and gender within opening of two major train terminals— between 1886 and 191220 and whose wife, the MMH through architectural analysis Windsor Station and Grand Trunk—resul- Mabel Cameron, sat on the Committee— and material culture, to highlight the shift ted in an influx of people looking for was the only doctor from the Board who in priority of the Committee. It is my hope work, the majority of whom were young communicated directly with the women. that with the study of this small piece of women.15 These developments are often The division of labour between these Montreal’s social and architectural history, celebrated as an exciting and prosperous two governing bodies was gendered: the I can begin to tease out and interrogate time for the city, but they came at a great women were given freedom to manage a few of these particularities.10 cost. Indeed, expensive housing and the the hospital however they saw fit, whe- influx of vulnerable populations resulted reas all medical and financial matters were This research is greatly indebted to his- in a housing crisis and devastating poverty decided by the Medical Board. While the torian Rhona Richman Kenneally, whose for many. women were responsible for raising funds

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de la Gauchetière Street

Charles Borromée Street FIG. 2. LOWER HALF OF THE ST. LAWRENCE WARD, SHOWING APPROXIMATE LOCATIONS OF FIG. 3. CITY OF MONTREAL, SHOWING WARDS, THE RED LIGHT DISTRICT, AND THE APPROXI- THE MMH BETWEEN 1843 AND 1905. | TRACED BY AUTHOR FROM THE 1881 GOAD ATLAS. MATE LOCATION OF THE OLD MMH. | TRACED BY AUTHOR FROM THE 1881 GOAD ATLAS.

by organizing social events such as the whom they hired. In this way, the women and unsavoury characters—to the northern annual Charity Ball, the management of of the Committee engaged in a “dialecti- end, closer to McGill University and the these funds—outside of bargaining for cal process” with their charges, in which affluent St. Antoine ward. The institution wares and food at the lowest cost—was they consolidated their middle-class iden- originated as a small, multi-room dwelling at the Board’s discretion. tities through projecting morals onto on St. Gabriel Street near Champs de Mars others.23 Cleanliness—of the soul and the at the southern end of the St. Louis ward.26 The women of the Committee preoccupied physical environment—was paramount “The MMH moved around the same area, themselves with the moral wellbeing of within the MMH. Charitable work was and settled into its location at 93 St. Urbain their patients. Each month, the Committee also a form of social capital for women Street in 1852 (fig. 2).” Caroline V. Barrett appointed two visitors who would make in that time and place.24 In managing the and John R. Fraser note that the move “pro- the rounds at the hospital, speak with the hospital, middle-class women could expe- ved an important step in the development patients, and comment on the state of the rience the privileges and freedoms that of the institution, for the hospital activities institution at their meeting. These women their male counterparts enjoyed. were free to expand and the area selected subscribed to maternalist ideals, where was found most desirable for the many marriage and motherhood were perceived THE WARDS OF MONTREAL poor patients of the city.”27 as crucial to strengthening society. In other words, the birth of a “moral” future Over the course of its long history, the MMH The old hospital was located at the sou- citizen was contingent on the spiritual slowly travelled north toward Mount Royal. thern end of the St. Lawrence ward, health of the mother.21 The women also This exemplifies architectural historian which bordered the working-class St. Ann stressed the importance of domestic work Shelley Hornstein’s observation that hospi- ward, and was close to the port and the and sanitation.22 Within the institution, tals in Montreal literally climbed the moun- Red Light District (fig. 3).28 In the spatial the women of the Committee delegated tain in a “quest to dominate the city.”25 In imagination of middle- and upper-class tasks for which they would be responsible this particular case, the hospital travelled Montrealers, the port was a site associated in their own homes to the working-class from the southern end of the city—which with disease and disorder, frequented by laundresses, seamstresses, and cooks was associated with unsanitary conditions sailors, sex workers, and other supposedly

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FIG. 4. MONTREAL MATERNITY HOSPITAL AT 93 ST. URBAIN FIG. 5. ANDREW THOMAS TAYLOR’S RENDERING OF THE MONTREAL MATERNITY HOSPITAL. | FROM LA STREET. | PHOTOGRAPH PUBLISHED IN BARRETT AND FRASER, THE PRESSE OF FEBRUARY 13, 2019. ROYAL VICTORIA MONTREAL MATERNITY HOSPITAL, 1943, P. 9.

nefarious characters. Recent historical and witness live births.32 The only known work experience at the MMH. Kenneally accounts describe the St. Lawrence ward photograph of the institution at remarks that in some cases, doctors’ wives as a mix between commercial and residen- 93 St. Urbain shows that the façade of the took places on the Committee, and were tial spaces.29 Positioning the southern end hospital blended in with the surrounding “channels through which their husbands of the ward in relation to the Red Light residential buildings (fig. 4). It is impor- could exert influence” on decision-making District, the port, and Dufferin Square (an tant to note that there was an institution within the all-female governing body.34 “unsavoury hangout for down-and-outs across the street that provided provisional Though this may be true to some extent, in the 1880s”30), the social character of shelter for impoverished women in need, the archive also reveals several instances the ward emerges not as homogenous, and archival evidence shows that an ove- of resistance against the board of physi- but gradient; the southern end of the rwhelming number of women from that cians on behalf of these women. Revealed St. Lawrence ward can thus be seen as a shelter sought care at the MMH.33 Cloaked in the Minute Books of the institution, “transition zone” between working and by a domestic outward appearance, the these instances of dissent are subtle and middle classes.31 Thus, the trajectory of the institution was unobtrusive on the visual spatial. In 1894, financial and spatial crises MMH not only demonstrates an ascent, it landscape of the city. The patients, once in the hospital came to a boiling point. marks a departure from the lower- and they entered the hospital, would also The Committee sent a letter to the Faculty working-class women it once served. be removed from sight. The facilities of of Medicine, threatening to resign if the the old hospital were deemed suitable financial needs of the present hospital THE OLD HOSPITAL up until the 1890s, when overcrowding were not met, and unless a new hospital became an issue and the hospital fell into was promised. The argument was centred The old hospital was a plain two-storey disrepair. on a lack of funds and the unsuitability of repurposed home with a basement and the current building. The following year, an attic, as well as a kitchen, servants’ Within the old hospital, the women of when the hospital was still in a dilapida- quarters, and beds for patients. It was the Committee were the symbolic and ted state, the Committee once more chal- primarily a teaching hospital, where physical gatekeepers for the nurses and lenged the Faculty using another tactic. students could train in obstetric medicine medical students who wished to gain The secretary of the Committee drafted

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FIG. 6. CITY OF MONTREAL, SHOWING ST. LAWRENCE AND ST. ANTOINE WARDS, THE AF- FIG. 7. WARD AT THE MONTREAL MATERNITY HOSPITAL, MONTREAL, QC, 1925-1926. SILVER FLUENT SQUARE MILE NEIGHBOURHOOD, THE MCGILL MEDICAL FACULTY (LEFT), SALTS ON PAPER MOUNTED ON CARD – GELATIN SILVER PROCESS, © MCCORD MUSEUM. | AND TAYLOR’S MMH (RIGHT). | TRACED BY AUTHOR FROM THE 1881 GOAD ATLAS. BLACKBURNS. IMAGE COURTESY OF THE MCCORD MUSEUM ARCHIVES AND DOCUMENTATION CENTRE.

a letter to the Faculty, expressing that THE NEW HOSPITAL complex. In 1905, Trefflé Berthiaume— they would hesitate “to issue tickets of who owned La Presse—commissioned a admission to any fresh students, until “L’édifice sera de pierre et de brique,” read six-plex across the street designed by pro- some assurance of assistance could be a front-page article in Montreal’s franco- minent francophone Montreal architect had.”35 This event underlines the actual phone newspaper La Presse in February Louis-Roch Montbriand.38 This develop- power of the Committee to admit or 1903, “et en traçant les plans, l’architecte ment underlines the burgeoning appeal deny medical students to the premises. a prévu tous les changements que subi- of the northern end of the St. Lawrence The Committee therefore demonstrated raient certains détails quand l’édifice devra ward to the middle classes, and a depar- their power over the administration of être agrandi pour répondre aux besoins ture from the hospital’s charitable origins. the enterprise, including the proposal to des temps.”37 The image that accompanies commission a new building. Eventually, the article presents the hospital, a two- Taylor’s 1903 plan of the MMH indicates the Medical Board acquiesced to the storey brick building with a limestone base that the hospital was supposed to contain Committee’s demands and a new buil- (fig. 5) on a large plot of land surroun- thirty teaching beds organized into pub- ding was promised. In 1895, Dr. Cameron ded by green space. The façade, oriented lic and private wards, case rooms, a small wrote to the Committee on behalf of the toward St. Urbain Street (one of the main operating theatre, and a large hall for McGill Medical Faculty, stating that they thoroughfares in Montreal both then and teaching.39 Since this plan was produced “look[ed] confidently to the strengthe- now), presents three Palladian windows two years before construction of the new ning of their [the Committee’s] hands, in and a raised portico. The new hospital hospital began, it is unclear how the hos- the efforts they will not cease to make for was situated at the northern end of the pital was eventually organized. However, the welfare of their institution.”36 From St. Lawrence ward, only a few blocks east looking at Taylor’s original plan for the that point forward, the new building from the affluent St. Antoine ward which hospital along with photographs of the became a major preoccupation of the included McGill University and the Square hospital and descriptions from the archive Committee. From the site, to the architect Mile neighbourhood (fig. 6). While the old sheds some light on the layout of the new and insurance, the Committee followed institution was across from a women’s hospital. According to the Minute Book, the progress of the new building intently. shelter, the new one faced an apartment there were two main public wards, eight

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FIG. 8. DELIVERY ROOM, MONTREAL MATERNITY HOSPITAL, MONTREAL, QC, 1925-1926. SILVER SALTS ON PAPER MOUNTED ON CARD – GELATIN SILVER PROCESS, © MCCORD MUSEUM. | BLACKBURNS. IMAGE COURTESY OF THE MCCORD MUSEUM ARCHIVES AND DOCUMENTATION CENTRE.

FIG. 9. SEQUENCE OF ROOMS AROUND THE MAIN ENTRANCE OF THE NEW MMH. | TRACED BY AUTHOR FROM 1903 FLOOR PLAN BY ANDREW THOMAS TAYLOR.

private wards, and “separation” wards for a disorganized committee of physicians room up to the first floor, which would women who were thought to be conta- and laymen was now a proper Medical effectively limit her supervision and there- gious. A photo album from 1925 (the last Board that mirrored the organization fore her control over the medical students. year that Taylor’s MMH was in use) shows of the Committee.40 This reorganization She refused and insisted she be moved a sun-filled and tidy private ward, which emerged spatially through the sequence back to the main floor.41 This sequence of showcases a thriving fern (fig. 7); and a of rooms around the entrance on the first rooms thus emerges as an important site sterile, streamlined delivery room for pri- floor, where the Committee room and the for negotiating power between the phys- vate patients (fig. 8), where the covered Visiting Doctors’ quarters flank the main icians and the Committee. radiators and mirror-like glass surfaces entrance (fig. 9). Next to the Committee promise a sanitary and safe childbirth. In Room was the Lady Superintendent’s In the new hospital, patients were either terms of site, design, material, and spa- room, which was adjacent to the student paying or non-paying (“waiting”) patients. tial organization, the new hospital clearly entrance. Since the Lady Superintendent The paying patients would receive care signified a departure from the charitable was hired by, and reported to the either in a private ward where the patient origins of the MMH. Committee, the proximity of the student would be attended to by a licensed phys- entrance to that room indicates the pre- ician—some women were even permitted The new hospital coincided with a reorgan- vailing surveillance and control over the to bring their own family doctor42—or a ization of the two administrative bodies of medical students on behalf of the women private ward, where the patient would be the MMH, the Committee and the McGill administrators. Once again, the Minute tended to by medical students. The appeal Faculty of Medicine. However, the former Book animates this plan: the gender sym- of the private wards did not only come set the precedent for the reorganization of metry of that space was temporarily upset from the quality of care. The women of the the latter. Indeed, upon the opening of the in February 1906, when the Medical Board Committee played a direct role in manu- new hospital, what had previously been tried to move the Lady Superintendent’s facturing the material worlds of patients

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FIG. 10. NURSES, CRIBS, AND BABY TROLLEY, MONTREAL MATERNITY HOSPITAL, MONTREAL, FIG. 11. CRADLES, MONTREAL MATERNITY HOSPITAL, MONTREAL, QC, 1925-1926. SILVER QC, 1925-1926. SILVER SALTS ON PAPER MOUNTED ON CARD – GELATIN SILVER SALTS ON PAPER MOUNTED ON CARD – GELATIN SILVER PROCESS, © MCCORD PROCESS, © MCCORD MUSEUM. | BLACKBURNS. IMAGE COURTESY OF THE MCCORD MUSEUM MUSEUM. | BLACKBURNS. IMAGE COURTESY OF THE MCCORD MUSEUM ARCHIVES AND DOCUMENTATION ARCHIVES AND DOCUMENTATION CENTRE. CENTRE.

of different social classes within the hos- rocking bassinets outfitted with canopies. for the parent: the newborns are handled pital. As noted by architectural historian In a photo album from the MMH at the by the hospital’s nurses and carted off in Lizabeth Cohen, material culture was a way McCord Museum, the ribbons on top of groups to the public nursery. in which middle-class reformers attempted each bassinet are tinted either blue or pink, to impress Victorian standards of femin- suggesting that the “private” babies were While there were costs associated with inity on working-class subjects.43 Certain perhaps further differentiated by gender. staying at the old hospital, the fees were members were charged with decorating The private bassinets are physically sep- rarely paid in full simply because the the private rooms for comfort, while others arate and lined with fabric, ensuring no hospital served such a destitute demo- were responsible for bargaining with local physical or visual connection between the graphic. The material comforts of the manufacturers for the cheapest items with babies. Further, private patients’ babies paying patients wards came at a price: which to furnish the public wards. could wear their own clothes, whereas these patients paid between twenty-five public patients’ babies had to wear gar- and forty dollars per fortnight for the pri- The spatial and material distinctions ments provided by the hospital.45 A table vate rooms. In the new hospital, so too between the private and public wards and two chairs are positioned next to the did admission into the public ward.46 In illustrate Adams’ observation that “[e] window in the private nursery, perhaps 1905, likely due to financial difficulties, very aspect of the architecture of private for a happy couple to visit their new baby. the Committee raised the price of beds patients pavilions stressed separation Interestingly, no patients are pictured with in the larger public ward to six dollars and differentiation.”44 This is particularly their babies, and only one woman’s face for the fortnight. Within a few weeks of salient in comparing photographs of the is visible in the photograph of the private these new admission fees, the public wards public and private nurseries. The public ward (see fig. 7), a phantom head floating with students were empty—six dollars was nursery (fig. 10) is flanked by wall-to-wall on a pillow. The garments, bassinets, and more than poor patients could afford, bassinets, separated from one another physical separation of the private babies and the price was thus reduced to three by wire caging. Two nurses, each hold- indicate individuality and control on behalf dollars.47 In 1906, the secretary reported ing an infant, stand behind a rolling trol- of the paying patient. As can be seen in that a waiting patient in the public ward ley in which three other babies lay. The the collective experience of the public ward had complained to the Society for the private nursery (fig. 11) shows individual and nursery, the hospital seems to stand in Protection of Women and Children about

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from view and created the appearance of a reformatory institution from the outside. The selective concealment of the waiting patients ward, the material furnishings of the private and public wards, and the spatial organization of the new plan point to the contradictions and complications of the role of the Committee of Management within the new hospital.

CONCLUSION

Although Taylor’s plan promised flexibility and expansion, the demand for in-hospital births continued to rise and eventually overwhelmed the institution. In 1925, the MMH continued its ascent up Mount Royal, and took its final iteration next to the Royal Victoria Hospital. I have argued that the new hospital was an intermedi- ary space within which the Committee of Management negotiated their identities FIG. 12. WILLIAM NOTMAN AND SON, MONTREAL MATERNITY HOSPITAL, MONTREAL, QC, 1906. SILVER SALTS ON GLASS and established their authority through – GELATIN DRY PLATE PROCESS, © MCCORD MUSEUM. | IMAGE COURTESY OF THE MCCORD MUSEUM ARCHIVES AND DOCUMENTATION CENTRE. spatial tactics and alterations to the new hospital. As negotiators and communica- tors, they used their privileges within the her treatment in the new hospital, and the but the bid on the land was ultimately old hospital to demand a new one. Once Maternity had to reimburse her the eleven rejected due to objections from the neigh- the Medical Board formed at the new dollars she had paid for her stay.48 It is rare bours. These were based on apprehensions institution, the women found other ways to read about the waiting patients in the over the moral character of the patients.49 to assert their authority through space. Committee’s Minute Books. The patient’s The concern over the appearance of the Even though the new hospital attracted discontent signifies that the conditions building, particularly the visibility of the an upper-class clientele, the Committee within the wards for the waiting patients waiting wards from the street, suggests tried to recreate the image of a reforma- were not ideal. By decorating the rooms that the Committee was taking action to tory institution with material interventions according to social class, the Committee shake this public perception by simultan- to the exterior of the building. The women retained their roles as social arbiters within eously concealing the waiting patients of the Committee manipulated their sur- the new hospital. from view and communicating the appear- roundings in the new hospital to assert ance of a reformatory institution from their authority despite the changing role In 1906, William Notman photographed the outside. Drawings of a wire trellis to of the institution itself. Most importantly, the institution (fig. 12). Perhaps the pros- cover the waiting patient’s verandahs were I hope I have demonstrated how alterna- pect of a famous photographer docu- presented to the Committee, as they had tive sources can be read spatially, to glean menting the hospital stirred some concerns decided the verandahs were “too open.”50 information about how the women of about the public perception of the MMH, Further, the Committee expressed that the the Committee experienced and manipu- for this led to a discussion about a series of double windows of the public wards were lated space. The conscientiousness of the material alterations to facilitate control of to be taken off, and blinds put on. With Committee of Management and their the optics of the building. In the years lead- material interventions on the exterior, efforts to record the minutes of the meeting up to the construction of the hospital, the Committee of Management simul- ings offer a glimpse into their spatial and a site on St. George Street was considered, taneously concealed the waiting patients material worlds over a hundred years later.

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NOTES 6. For a study on the link between identity for- Mid-nineteenth-century Montreal, Montreal, mation and place in nineteenth- and twen- Department of Geography, McGill University, tieth-century Montreal, see The Montreal coll. “Partage de l’espace,” no. 6, p. 3. 1. I extend my gratitude to Tanya Southcott, History Group, 2005, Negotiating Identites Michael Windover, and Jessica Mace for 14. Fougères, Dany, 2017, “The Modern City,” in in 19th- and 20th-century Montreal, edited by their excellent feedback on this essay. I am Fougères and MacLeod, Montreal: The History Bettina Bradbury and Mary Anne Poutanen, equally grateful to the McCord Museum of a North American City, op. cit., p. 383. Vancouver, University of British Columbia Archives and Documentation Centre, espe- Press. 15. Gauvreau, Danielle, Sherry Olson, and Patricia cially Heather McNabb, whose expertise in Thornton, 2007, “The Harsh Welcome of Montreal social history was invaluable to this 7. For more on patient demographics of the an Industrial City: Immigrant Women in research. Many thanks to the Society for the MMH, see Kenneally, Rhona Richman, Montreal, 1880-1900,” Histoire sociale / Social Study of Architecture in Canada for giving me 1983, “The Transformation of the Montreal History, vol. 40, no. 80, p. 346. the opportunity to present this paper at the Maternity: Charity Functions Predominate,” 44th Annual SSAC Conference. Finally, I thank in Kenneally’s thesis, The Montreal Maternity, 16. Copp, The Anatomy of Poverty, p. 147. my colleagues and friends, Youki Cropas, Ipek 1843-1926, p. 23-44. 17. “[B]ecause of religious segregation, it is Mehmetog˘lu, and Magdalena Miłosz, for their 8. For more on the network of benevolent orga- illusory to speak of a true unified citywide feedback during the preliminary stages of this nizations in Montreal, see Fecteau, Jean-Marie ‘network,’ especially as the private mana- research. and Janice Harvey, 2017, “Montreal’s Network gement of various organizations made it 2. “The death of children under one year made of Social Regulation,” in Dany Fougères and very difficult to make joint decisions in the up 43 percent of the total deaths in the city Roderick MacLeod (eds.), Montreal: The Protestant community, each association jea- in 1897. These statistics were largely the result History of a North American City, vol. 1, lously guarding its independence and deci- of unsafe water, impure milk, and the limited Montreal, McGill-Queen’s University Press, sion-making autonomy.” Fecteau and Harvey, use of vaccination against smallpox and diph- p. 670-708. “Montreal’s Network of Social Regulation,” theria.” Copp, Terry, 1974, The Anatomy of p. 670-708. 9. Kenneally, The Montreal Maternity, 1843- Poverty: The Condition of the Working Class 1926, p. 10. 18. According to Fecteau and Harvey (id., p. 680), in Montreal 1897-1929, The Canadian Social religious segregation was the defining cha- History Series, Toronto, McClelland and 10. This research deals with White women of dif- racteristic of Montreal’s “network of social Stewart, p. 25-26. ferent social classes. Between 1887 and 1906, regulation.” there is only mention of one Black woman 3. Id., p. 93. who was admitted to the MMH. This absence 19. Kenneally, The Montreal Maternity, 1843- 4. Cohen, Lizabeth A., 1986, “Embellishing a Life can be attributed to the fact, as art historian 1926, p. 21. of Labor: An Interpretation of the Material Charmaine Nelson points out, that the colo- 20. Id., p. 31. Culture of American Working-class Homes, nization of North America was contingent on 1885-1915,” in Dell Upton and John Michael the erasure of Indigenous populations and the 21. For a longer discussion on maternalism and Vlach (eds.), Common Places: Readings in white-washing of the landscape. Further, the middle-class charitable women in nineteenth- American Vernacular Architecture, Athens, lack of evidence of Black patients at the MMH century Montreal, see Kirkland, Elizabeth, University of Georgia Press, p. 752-775, at and the small numbers of Black women in the 2011, “‘N’oublions pas que la famille est le p. 261. This work is especially influenced benevolent network of Montreal in general royaume de la femme’: Marriage, Maternity, by Adams’s innovative “spatial biography” do not mean that Montreal did not participate and the Home,” in Mothering Citizens: Elite method, where she disrupts the gender hie- in the transatlantic slave economy: Montreal Women in Montreal, 1890-1914, Ph.D. dis- rarchies that usually plague women’s biogra- and all of its inhabitants were complicit in sertation, Department of History, McGill phies through a spatial reading of alternative the colonial/slave economy, overtly through University, Montreal, p. 34-98. visual sources, material culture, and coun- owning slaves, or covertly by producing and 22. Minute Book of the Committee of ter-narratives. See Adams, Annmarie, 2018, profiting of the circulation of goods such Management of the Montreal Maternity “Encountering Maude Abbott,” Feminist as cotton and sugar. For a ground-breaking Hospital (from hereon referred to simply Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in study on landscape, geography, and slavery as Minute Book), June 1893, Osler Library Culture and Politics, vol. 2, no. 2, art. 21, in British colonies, see Nelson, Charmaine A., Archive, the Royal Victoria Hospital Women’s [http://www.lectitopublishing.nl/viewpdf/ 2016, Slavery, Geography and Empire in Pavilion Collection, box P037. encountering-maude-abbott-3889.pdf] , Nineteenth-century Marine Landscapes of accessed June 2019. Montreal and Jamaica, London, Routledge; 23. Valverde, Mariana, 2008, The Age of Light, New York, Taylor & Francis Group. Soap, and Water: Moral Reform in English 5. See Barrett, Caroline V. and John R. Fraser, Canada, 1885-1925, Toronto, University of 1943, The Royal Victoria Montreal Maternity 11. Adams, Annmarie, 2008, “Patients,” in Toronto Press, p. 29. Hospital, 1943: The Hundredth Anniversary Medicine by Design: The Architect and the of the Founding of the Hospital, Montreal, Modern Hospital, 1893-1943, Minneapolis, 24. Kirkland points out that women’s involve- Royal Victoria Montreal Maternity Hospital; University of Minnesota Press, p. 33-70. ment in charitable work, which was perceived Kenneally, Rhona Richman, 1983, The as non-threatening to the patriarchal social 12. Fougères and McLeod, Montreal: The History Montreal Maternity, 1843-1926: Evolution order, allowed them to expand their worlds of a North American City, p. 381. of a Hospital, master’s thesis, Department of beyond the home. Kirkland, “N’oublions pas History, McGill University, Montreal. 13. Hanna, David B., 1986, The Layered que la famille est le royaume de la femme,” City: A Revolution in Housing in p. 110.

JSSAC | JSÉAC 44 > No 1 > 2019 29 Laura O’Brien > ANALYSIS | ANALYSE

25. Hornstein, Shelley, 1990, “The Architecture 40. Kenneally notes that this new Medical Board of the Montreal Teaching Hospitals of the appropriated the organizational structure of Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Canadian Art the Committee of Management. Kenneally, History / Annales d’histoire de l’art canadien, The Montreal Maternity, 1843-1926, p. 26. vol. 13-14, no. 2-1, p. 12-24, at p. 14. 41. Minute Book, February 9, 1906, box P037. 26. Barrett and Fraser write that the hospital was 42. Kenneally, The Montreal Maternity, 1843- located on Main Street at the lower end of 1926, p. 37. the St. Lawrence ward. Barrett and Fraser, The Royal Victoria Montreal Maternity Hospital. 43. Cohen, “Embellishing a Life of Labor,” p. 764. The Lovell’s directory from 1843 states 44. Adams, “Patients,” p. 35-36. that the MMH (then called the “University Lying-in Hospital”) was in fact on St. Gabriel. 45. Kenneally, The Montreal Maternity, 1843- Bibliothèque et Archives nationales de 1926, p. 37. Québec, “Annuaires Lovell | Collection numé- 46. While patients were supposed to pay fees at rique,” [http://bibnum2.banq.qc.ca/bna/ the old hospital, few of the needy patients lovell/], accessed June 7, 2019. could, and they were therefore allowed to 27. Barrett and Fraser, The Royal Victoria Montreal stay free of charge as “waiting patients.” Maternity Hospital, p. 10. Kenneally, The Montreal Maternity, 1843- 1926, p. 4-7. 28. The historical Red Light District, as it is reflected in the image, is delineated by his- 47. Minute Book, October 24, 1905, box P037. torian Tamara Myers. Myers, Tamara, 1996, 48. Minute Book, February 9, 1906, box P037. Criminal Women and Bad Girls: Regulation and Punishment in Montreal, 1890-1930, Ph.D. 49. Barrett and Fraser, The Royal Victoria Montreal dissertation, Department of History, McGill Maternity Hospital, p. 10. University, Montreal, p. 66. 50. Minute Book, May 4, 1906, box P037. 29. Fougères, “The Modern City,” p. 388.

30. Id., p. 378.

31. The southern part of St. Antoine Ward was a less affluent “transition zone” that bordered on the working-class Ste. Ann’s ward. I suggest that this transitional character extended late- rally along the St. Lawrence ward. Fougères, “The Modern City,” p. 388.

32. The Montreal Maternity Hospital was one of the first hospitals in North America to let students observe live births. Kenneally, The Montreal Maternity, 1843-1926, p. iv.

33. Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Sheltering Home, Register, 1887-1897, Montreal, McCord Museum, McCord Archives, Microsoft Excel database on CD-ROM.

34. Kenneally, The Montreal Maternity, 1843- 1926, p. 32.

35. Minute Book, March 1, 1895, box P037.

36. Minute Book, March 25, 1895.

37. “L’Hôpital de la Maternité,” 1903, La Presse, February 13, p. 1.

38. Communauté urbaine de Montréal, 1987, Architecture Domestique II – Les Appartements, Montreal, Le Service, p. 342.

39. Wagg, Susan W., The Architecture of Andrew Thomas Taylor: Montreal’s Square Mile and Beyond, Montreal, McGill-Queen’s University Press, p. 154.

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