American Women's Hospitals Service

Since 1917, the American Women’s Hospitals Service has been providing global aid to clinics and regions around the world both in the form of grant support as well as relief supplies. AWHS History In July 1915, 300 women physicians attended a lecture presented by Dr. Rosalie Morton, highlighting the work of women physicians in World War I. It was the norm in the United States at that time, as in the allied countries, to deny medical women any active role in the war effort. Dr. Morton’s lecture sparked a flame which would see the birth of the American Women’s Hospitals. The American Women’s Hospitals (now known as the American Women’s Hospitals Service, or AWHS) was established to achieve a two-fold mission: the relief of suffering through medical care and the advancement of women in the medical profession. Dr. Esther Pohl Lovejoy chronicled much of the historical work of AWHS in her remarkable books, [*Certain Samaritans*](https://archive.org/details/certainsamaritan00love/mode/2up) and *[Women Physicians and Surgeons](https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4502143&view=1up&seq=9)*. - [Click here](https://archive.org/details/reportofamerican00inamer) to view an AWHS report from 1917 - [Finding aid, American Women’s Hospitals Records](https://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/pacscl/detail.html?id=PACSCL_DUCOM_wmsc010xml) - [Finding aid, American Women’s Hospitals Photographs](https://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/pacscl/detail.html?id=PACSCL_DUCOM_WMSC144) - [The American Women’s Hospitals: Women Physicians in World War I](https://works.bepress.com/moree/31/) - [Learn about how AWHS played a major role in the WWI relief efforts](https://www.amwa-doc.org/wwi-exhibition) - [The American Women’s Hospitals at Home: Public Health in Depression-Era Appalachia](https://www.pinterest.com/drexelmed/the-american-womens-hospitals-at-home-public-healt/) For almost a century, AWHS has continued this tradition of service in supporting medical programs and projects both at home and abroad.