The Committee of Management and the Montreal Maternity Hospital, 1893-1906 Laura J
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Document généré le 13 août 2020 18:27 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 Aller au sommaire du numéro Éditeur(s) SSAC-SEAC Découvrir la revue 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 Copyright © SSAC-SEAC, 2019 Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d’auteur. L’utilisation des services d’Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d’utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne. https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ Cet article est diffusé et préservé par Érudit. Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l’Université de Montréal, l’Université Laval et l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. https://www.erudit.org/fr/ ANALYSIS | ANALYSE “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 hos- pital 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 alter- native 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 expe- rienced this space.4 Histories of the MMH either focus on the medical men who practised at the hospi- tal, celebrate the charitable contributions of the institution, or delineate the trans- formation of the hospital through techno- logical advancements and infrastructural shifts.5 Building on this research, I inves- tigate 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. JSSAC | JSÉAC 44 > No 1 > 2019 > 21-30 21 LAURA O’BRIEN > ANALYSIS | ANALYSE 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 22 JSSAC | JSÉAC 44 > No 1 > 2019 LAURA O’BRIEN > ANALYSIS | ANALYSE de la Gauchetière Street Charles Borromée Street FIG. 2. LOWER HALF OF THE ST. LAWRENCE WARD, SHOWING APPROXIMATE LOCATIONS OF FIG.