CHICAGO METRO HISTORY FAIR 2013 SUMMARY STATEMENT FORM

Please TYPE on sheet or use word processing ALL PROJECTS: Attach an annotated bibliography. Please divide primary and secondary sources from each other. Two copies of SSF &Annotated Bibliography are required for competitions. .

Title: Mary

Thompson Hospital Brozell

Student name(s): Ashley Project Category: Individual and Website

Check if applicable (and respond to the 3rdquestion): This project uses the 2013National History Day theme, Turning Points in History: People, Ideas, Events

1. THESIS STATEMENT
Present the projects argument or interpretation in two sentences. If you are using the NHD theme, you might want to make it evident in your thesis statement.

Throughout of the second half of the 19th century in Chicago, women physicians found few professional appointments or privileges open to them in existing medical clinics, dispensaries, hospitals and institutions. There were also restrictions that denied hospital care to sick women and preventing women from obtaining medical education. Mary Thompson realized that and decided to make her own hospital. It was a turning point because the hospital provided services to indigent women and children clinical opportunities in medicine, and to train competent nurses.

2. SUMMARY OF PROJECT
Briefly explain your project and its conclusion. Include: How and why did change happen and what was the impact? Why is it historically significant? What historical meaning or importance can we learn from your findings?

The goals of the hospital were to provide inpatient treatment and outpatient dispensary care for poor women and children. Most of the patients were war widows, unwed mothers, and refugees from the south. The hospital started out with a small facility with fourteen beds, a dispensary and a pharmacy. But the hospital later outgrew its capacity and by 1885, Mary Thompson designed a new eighty- bed building. Her reputation as a surgeon began to grow and she became the first woman in Chicago to perform major surgery. She helped open opportunities for other women through her own achievements as surgeon and physician.

3. Required for projects using the National History Day theme only.
Explain how this project integrates the NHD theme Turning Points in History: People, Ideas, Events into its argument.

This project fits into the theme of Turning Points in History, because Mary Thompsons hospital had impacted the lives of many women and now we have more women than men working as doctors.

4. PROCESS A. What historical question did you start off withand how did it change once you began doing your research? I wanted to start off by finding more research about Mary Thompsons Hospital and how it had made an impact on women.

B. What kinds of sources did you use as evidence to develop your argument (for example, letters,
photographs, government documents, interviews, etc.)? I used primary and secondary sources such as letters, archives, as well as books and newspaper articles.

C. Select one of evidence that you used and explain how it influenced your argument.
I have used mostly archives that had helped influenced my argument because it explained a lot about how Mary Thompsons hospital had an impact on women. It also showed documents of her patients talking about how Mary Thompson had cured them.

D. List libraries (other than school), museums, and other institutions that you visited to do your research. UIC College, Harold Washington Library Center (HWLC), Sultzer Regional Library