Flint-Goodridge Hospital of Dillard University

About this property

Flint-Goodridge Hospital was a hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana. For almost a century (1896–1983) it served predominantly African-American patients and was the first black hospital in the South. For most of these years, was owned and operated by Dillard University, a historically black university. From 1932 until its closing in 1983 it was located on Louisiana Avenue in uptown New Orleans. Its former Louisiana Avenue facility is now listed in the US National Register of Historic Places. According to Kevin McQueeney, after the Civil War thousands of African Americans who were formerly slaves migrated to New Orleans. By 1890, the black population in New Orleans approached 60,000. Many of the city's poor black population lived in squalid conditions, and the mortality rate was high in comparison to whites of the time, while access to adequate health care was limited. All of the existing private hospitals refused to treat black patients. In 1894, the New Orleans chapter of the Phyllis Wheatley Club set out to create a black hospital. The hospital began as the Phyllis Wheatley Sanitarium and Training School for Negro Nurses and was run by the Phyllis Wheatly Club. It was the first black hospital in the South. The training school included hospital care and was founded in 1896, operating under the administration of the Phyllis Wheatley Club and located in the Medical College facility of New Orleans University, which was run by the Methodist Episcopal Church. Needing increased financing to maintain the hospital and because of a lack of financial support, the school was taken under the wing of New Orleans University and merged with the school's Medical College hospital. The efforts of Methodist Episcopal Church Bishop Willard Francis Mallalieu, the school was able to enlist the aid of John Flint of Fall River, Massachusetts, who donated $25,000 to the institution. Flint lobbied Caroline Mudge of Boston to donate money to buy a building for the hospital. In 1901, the name of the hospital was changed to Sarah Goodridge Hospital and Nurse Training School and the name of the medical college to Flint Medical College of New Orleans University, in honor of John Flint. Flint donated an additional $10,000 to purchase a new property at 1566 Canal Street, which would house the Flint Medical College. From 1901 to 1911, it graduated a total of 164 physicians and pharmacists. The Flint Medical College closed in 1911, when the American Medical Association, under increasingly stringent guidelines, deemed its facilities unacceptable. The school closed after being given a scathing evaluation by the Flexner Report that the school "was in no position to make any contribution of value" but recommended Howard and Meharry medical school remain open. In 1915 the School of Pharmacy closed. That year all of the buildings were placed under the use of the Sarah Goodridge Hospital, which continued to operate under the administration of the Methodist Episcopal Church. and in 1916 a renovation was done on the facilities, which had fallen into disrepair. The buildings at Canal and Robertson streets, which had been used by both the Flint Medical College and the Sarah Goodridge Hospital and Nurses Training School, were converted into a 50-bed hospital and a nurse' residence. The hospital merged with the Flint Medical College and was renamed Flint-Goodridge Hospital. The Nurse Training Department was reorganized and continued under the management of New Orleans University.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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