Johns Hopkins
Photograph by swanksaloton Flickr.
Taney of the Dred Scott case who continually opposed Lincoln s presidential decisions, such as Ethan Johns his policies of limiting habeas corpus and stationing troops in Maryland. Cited in many of the newspaper articles on him during his lifetime and immediately after his death were his provisions of scholarships for the poor, and quality health services for the underserved, the poor without regard to their age, sex and color, the colored children asylum and other orphanages, the mentally ill and convalescents. Living his entire adult life in Baltimore, Hopkins made many friends among the city s social elite, many of them members of the Society of Friends.
The Johns Hopkins Orphan Asylum opened with 24 boys and girls. During the Civil War, Clifton became a frequent meeting place for local Union sympathizers, and federal officials. Hopkins support of Abraham Lincoln also often put him at odds with some of Maryland s most prominent people, particularly Supreme Court Justice Roger B.
In this vein, an integral part of his legacy, as a staunch advocate of abolitionism and the establishment of an asylum for disadvantaged and dis-enfranchised African-American youth, as well as his interest in the care of the elderly and the poor, no matter their age, sex, or color, has by and large been overlooked. In 1973 Johns Hopkins was cited prominently in the Pulitzer Prize winning book The Americans: The Democratic Experience by Daniel Boorstin, former head of the Library of Congress. As was done for other Johns Hopkins Institutions, it was planned after visits and correspondence with similar institutions in Europe and America.
This article, first published in 1870, also accompanied Hopkins obituary in the Baltimore American as a tribute in 1873. The asylum was eventually closed in 1924 nearly fifty years after it opened, and was never reopened. As per Hopkins March 1873 Instruction Letter, the School of Nursing was founded alongside the Hospital in 1889 by the hospital board of trustees in consultation with Florence Nightingale.
Johns Hopkins (November 11, 1795 – December 24, 1873) was a wealthy entrepreneur, philanthropist, and abolitionist of 19th century Baltimore, now most noted for his philanthropic creation of the institutions that bear his name, namely the Johns Hopkins Hospital, the Johns Hopkins University and its associated divisions, in particular the schools of nursing, medicine, and public health. Other examples of public giving were evident in the city, as public buildings housing free libraries, schools and foundations sprang up along the city s widening streets.
Kelly Miller, Frederick Scott, Robert Gamble and James Nabwangu became the first persons of African descent to attend the University s graduate school,undergraduate school, and medical schools, respectively. Women s most well known success after the founding of the nursing school was their requirement that they be allowed to attend Johns Hopkins medical institutions after they provided funds that made possible the opening of the School of Medicine in 1893.
While the Johns Hopkins Colored Children Orphan Asylum was founded by the hospital trustees, the other institutions that carry the name of Johns Hopkins were founded under the administration of the first president of the Johns Hopkins University, Daniel Coit Gilman. The first of these posthumously founded institutions, the Johns Hopkins Colored Children Orphan Asylum (JHCCOA) was founded in 1875. Hopkins was keenly aware of the city s need for medical facilities, particularly in light of the medical advances made during the war, and in 1870 he made a will setting aside seven million dollars - mostly in B & O stock - for the incorporation of a free hospital and affiliated medical and nurse s training colleges, as well as an orphanage for colored children and a university.
This provision will secure the services of women competent to care for tho sick in the hospital wards, and will enable you to benefit the whole community by supplying it with a class of trained and experienced nurses . The first women were enrolled in the Johns Hopkins University s undergraduate school in 1970.
Many board members were on both boards. The business partnership was later dissolved with Moore purporting Hopkins penchant for capital accumulation as the cause for the divide. One of the first campaigns of the American Civil War was planned at Johns Hopkins summer estate, Clifton, where he had also entertained a number of foreign dignitaries including King Edward VII.
After seven years with his uncle, Hopkins went into business together with Benjamin Moore, a fellow Quaker. According to his will, it was to be located at his summer estate, Clifton.
The hospital and orphan asylum would each be overseen by the 12 member hospital board of trustees and the university by the twelve member university board of trustee. The original site for the Johns Hopkins University had been chosen personally by Hopkins.
Hopkins also pledged financial and logistic support to Lincoln, in particular the free use of the B&O railway system. Johns Hopkins is described as being an abolitionist before the word abolitionist was even invented , having been represented as such both prior to the Civil War period, as well as during the Civil War and Reconstruction Era. After the Civil War and during the Reconstruction era, Johns Hopkins stance on abolitionism infuriated many of the leading citizens and business persons in Baltimore. Both the nursing school and the hospital were founded over a decade after the founding of the orphan asylum in 1875 and the university in 1876.
His first name, Johns, (not John) was a family name. Johns Hopkins bequest was used to found posthumously the Johns Hopkins Colored Children Orphan Asylum first as he requested, in 1875, the Johns Hopkins University in 1876, the Johns Hopkins Press, the longest continuously operating academic press in America, in 1878, the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in 1889, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine 1893 and the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in 1916. Johns Hopkins views on his bequests, and on the duties and responsibilities of the two board of trustees, especially the hospital board of trustees led by his friend and fellow Quaker Francis King, were formally stated primarily in four documents, the incorporation papers filed in 1867, his instruction letter to the hospital trustees dated March 12 1873, his will, which was quoted from extensively in his Baltimore Sun obituary, In these documents, Hopkins also made provisions for scholarships to be provided for poor youths in the states where Johns Hopkins had made his wealth, as well as assistance to orphanages other than the one for African American children, to members of his family, to those he employed, black and white, his cousin Elizabeth, and, again, to other institutions for the care and education of youths regardless of color and the care of the ill, including the mentally ill, and convalescents. John Rudolph Niernsee, one of most famous architects of the time, designed the orphan asylum and helped to design the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Sex and color were major issues in the early history of the Johns Hopkins Institutions. From November 14, 1975 to September 6, 1976 Hopkins portrait was displayed at the National Portrait Gallery in an exhibit on the democratization of America based on Boorstin s book.
A Baltimore American journalist praised Johns Hopkins for founding three institutions, a university, a hospital and an orphan asylum for colored children, adding that Johns Hopkins was a man (beyond his times) who knew no race citing his provisions for both blacks and whites in the plans for his hospital. (His great-grandmother, Margaret Johns, married Gerard Hopkins, and they named their son Johns Hopkins, whose name was then passed on to his grandson.) His parents were Samuel Hopkins (1759-1814), of Anne Arundel County, and Hannah Janney (1774-1864), of Loudon County, Virginia. In 1807, the Hopkins family, who were members of the Society of Friends (Quakers), emancipated their slaves, Still, just as he would continue to provide for his extended family throughout his life and posthumously through his will, Hopkins bequeathed a home for her where she would continue to live until her death in 1889, almost fifteen years after the demise of Hopkins in 1873. Hopkins early experiences and successes in business came when he was put in charge of the store while his uncle was away during the War of 1812.
Hopkins instruction letter explicitly stated his vision for the hospital; first, to provide assistance to the poor of all races , no matter the indigent patient s age , sex or color ; second, that wealthier patients would pay for services and thereby subsidize the care provided to the indigent; third, that the hospital would be the administrative unit for the orphan asylum for African American children which was to receive $25000 in annual support out of the hospital s half of the endowment; and fourth, that the hospital and orphan asylum should serve 400 patients and 400 children respectively. By the end of the presidency of the first president of Johns Hopkins University, Daniel Coit Gilman Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins Press , Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and Johns Hopkins Hospital Colored Children Orphan Asylum had been founded, the latter by the trustees, and the others in the order listed under the Gilman administration. One of these friends was George Peabody, who was also born in 1795 and who in 1857 founded the Peabody Institute in Baltimore.
The property, now owned by the city of Baltimore, is the site of a golf course and a park named Clifton Park. The construction of the asylum, including its educational and living facilities, was praised by The Nation and the Baltimore American stating that the orphan asylum was a place where nothing was wanting that could benefit science and humanity .
Under Gilman and his successors, this orphanage was later changed to serve as an orphanage and training school for black female orphans principally as domestic workers, and next as an orthopedic convalescent home and school for colored crippled children and orphans. In 1989, the United States Postal Service issued a $1 postage stamp in Johns Hopkins honor, as part of the Great Americans series. .
The founding of the School of Nursing is usually linked to Johns Hopkins statements in his March 1873 instruction letter to the trustees that I desire you to establish, in connection with the hospital, a training school for female nurses. Those employees holding jobs in the service sector are those of African descent who have the longest and most continuous history at the Johns Hopkins Institutions. Following Hopkins death, the Baltimore Sun wrote a lengthy obituary which closed thus: In the death of Johns Hopkins a career has been closed which affords a rare example of successful energy in individual accumulations, and of practical beneficence in devoting the gains thus acquired to the public. His contribution to the university that has become his greatest legacy was, by all accounts, the largest philanthropic bequest ever made to an American educational institution. Johns Hopkins Quaker faith and his early life experiences, in particular the 1807 emancipation, had a lasting influence through out his life and his posthumous legacy as a businessman, railroad man, banker, investor, ship owner, His philanthropy, banking and other business practices were founded neither on slavery nor on the separate but unequal racism of the post Civil War years of his life.
The reporter also pointed to similarities between Benjamin Franklin s and Johns Hopkins views on hospital care and construction, such as their shared interest in free hospitals and the availability of emergency services without prejudice. In 1862 Hopkins wrote a letter to Lincoln requesting the President not to heed the detractors calls and continue to keep soldiers stationed in Maryland.
A biography entitled Johns Hopkins: A Silhouette written by his cousin Helen Hopkins Thom was published in 1929 by the Johns Hopkins University Press, the oldest continuously running press in the United States. On November 11, 1795, Johns Hopkins was born on Whitehall, a 500-acre (two km²) tobacco plantation with approximately 500 slaves located in Anne Arundel County, Maryland.
