Apparatus XY

Hopkins Women

41Finally, Sabin contributed to making the path of the Hopkins Medical women a little easier by becoming involved in the women's society there. From the opening of the medical school, M. Carey Thomas and the Baltimore Women's Committee tried to ease the way of the women students. There was a sitting room for the women at the Hospital and a lunchroom in the Physiological Building (Morantz-Sanchez 123-24). A Women's Medical Association was formed in order to help the students find an appropriate place to eat, and in 1918 a house was rented for that purpose, with the ground floor providing the dining room. In addition, there were seven bedrooms that were rented to students. In the spring of 1920 the Women's Association was officially incorporated and that summer a new house was purchased (Women's Medical Association, Box Wi-Z, APS). This was followed by a new alumnae branch of the Women's Organization, with Sabin as its Secretary. The alumnae saw this as a way to stay in touch with the medical school and provide them with club privileges while in Baltimore. The organization, in keeping with the formula of the Women's Organization, was funded by voluntary contributions, which were to be put in a special fund to help reduce the mortgage of the house or pay for repairs. Needless to say, given Sabin's predilection for coeducational professional institutions, the alumnae made clear that their organization in no way replaced or detracted from the regular alumni organization of the medical school ("To the Women Graduate of the Johns Hopkins Medical School," Women's Medical Association, APS). Nonetheless, Sabin and the other medical school graduates, recognized that the women had special needs which they could help address.

Conclusion

42 Florence Sabin understood the pressures that women medical school graduates faced and felt an obligation to help them. She understood the responsibilities which came with prominence and how they might conflict with her personal needs. In 1923 she had reluctantly declined an opportunity to go to the Peking Union Medical College in China in a top administrative position. She wrote to her friend Mrs. Denison,

I thought that I really had to go and from the standpoint of position, I probably should have gone because it is the first time a woman had had a full chair in a man's institution. I must ask you not to let it get out now that I have declined. I made up my mind that I cared more for my research than I did for positions and just now there is so much planned for the next two or three years. (28 Jan. Series II, Box 10, Folder 2, SSC)

Although she was optimistic about the progress that had been made from the time of her graduation at the dawn of the twentieth century, she was well aware of the continuing difficulties in finding post-graduate training, gaining resources for research and positions allowing research, and gaining recognition for the achievements of women scientists. While she always tried to encourage and support the highest standards, she did her best to address these needs through her attempts to establish the Gotham Hospital, to gain recognition for her predecessors and successors, and to help the path of students and scientists through research fellowships. To the extent her efforts fell short of success, one must look to the impact of the Depression and the lack of a critical mass of women in positions of institutional influence.