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Collection VanCC : Carolyn Conant Van Blarcom Collection

Description

Key

72445

Reference Code Element

VanCC

Type

Text

Dates

1901-1957, inclusive

Creator

Personal name, Van Blarcom, Carolyn Conant

Administrative/Biographical History

Carolyn Conant Van Blarcom
1875-1961
Carolyn Conant Van Blarcom was born in Alton, Illinois in 1875. She grew up in St. Louis. Her grandfather was the painter Alban Jasper Conant. In 1896 she moved to New Jersey to be with an aunt. She was connected with the Hasbrouck Institute, Jersey City, as a chaperon. In 1898 she entered Johns Hopkins Hospital Training School for Nurses as a pupil nurse. She graduated in 1901 and remained at Hopkins until 1904. While at Hopkins she served as an Instructor, Supervisor, and Second Assistant Superintendent of Nurses. She specialized in the obstetrical wards as the head nurse and was in charge of the Nurses Home. In 1904 she represented Hopkins at the St. Louis Exhibit. Between 1904-1905, she was Superintendent of Nurses at St. Luke's Hospital in St. Louis where she reorganized the training school. In 1908, she organized a Graduate Nurses Club and Central Registry for Nurses in Pasadena, California. Briefly in 1908, she was Superintendent of Nurses at the Maryland State Sanatorium for Tuberculosis in Sabillasville. In 1909 she organized work in connection with a private sanitarium for tuberculosis patients in New Bedford, Mass. From 1909 to 1916, she was Executive Secretary of the New York Association for the Prevention of Blindness, later the National Committee for the Prevention of Blindness. During these years she made a survey of all state, county and city laws in the United States relating to mother and infant health during childbirth. She registered as a midwife with the New York City Department of Health, the first trained nurse to do so. She then surveyed European laws regulating midwives. In 1911, through the Russell Sage Foundation, she studied the results in England of the Midwives Act of 1902. This work was published in 1913 as "The Midwife in England." She helped organize the curriculum for the first midwives school in the United States in connection with Bellevue Hospital. Between 1916 and 1917, she was Executive Secretary of the Illinois Association for the Prevention of Blindness. In 1917, she took charge of the New York office of the Red Cross Nursing Service as Director of the Atlantic Division of the American Red Cross, where she was in charge of outfitting and supplying Red Cross nurses going overseas in World War I. From 1919 to 1920, she was Health Editor for the Delineator Magazine, where she published a series of articles, "Making the World Safe for Babies." In 1922, she published the book, Obstetrical Nursing, a widely used nursing textbook. She also published a companion book, Getting Ready to be a Mother, an advice book for mothers. In 1924, she addressed the third English speaking Conference on Infant Welfare in London. In 1929, the Chicago Tribune published another of her health advice books Building the Baby. She was the author of numerous articles advocating trained nurse midwives, birth control, infant and maternal healthcare, and the prevention of blindness. In 1926 she, along with Dr. William Welch and Dr. Whitridge Williams, secured for Johns Hopkins University the E. Bayard Halsted Fund for Medical Research, which funds a chair in Bacteriology. She also secured from E. Bayard Halsted a gift to Johns Hopkins for the Study of Mental Deficiency in Child-bearing Women from 1929-1932. In the 1930s she was also on the Board of Trustees of Margaret Sanger's Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau. In 1942, she organized a Red Cross Nurses Aides course in Pasadena, California. She died in 1961., JHHSON class of 1901

Chronology

Johns Hopkins Training School for Nurses, student, 1898-1901

Scope and Content

The Carolyn Conant Van Blarcom collection consists of correspondence, writings and publications, clippings, scrapbooks, and photographs.

Subjects - Name

Corporate name, Johns Hopkins Hospital. School of Nursing. Class of 1901

Personal name, Van Blarcom, Carolyn Conant

Language

English

Administration

Date(s) of Descriptions

2001-2003

Processing Information

The Carolyn Conant Van Blarcom Collection was processed in 2001-2003 by Phoebe Evans Letocha and Anthony Dellureficio through a grant from the Johns Hopkins Nurses' Alumni Association.

Accession

2016-069

2000-109

Custodial History

Some time around 1949-1951, while she was in California, Carolyn Van Blarcom sent her papers to Louise Zabriskie in New York for safe keeping. Van Blarcom then requested in 1957 that Zabriskie send the papers to Johns Hopkins to be a part of the Johns Hopkins Nursing Historical Collection.
Upon their donation to the Johns Hopkins Nursing Historical Collection in 1957, the Van Blarcom Papers were housed in the Library at the Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Nursing with the rest of the Historical Collection. In 1968, they were moved with the Historical Collection to the Nightingale Room in Welch Library. In 2000, the papers were found by Librarian Christine Ruggere in the cabinet under the window in the main room of Nightingale Room in Welch Library. At that time, they moved to the Alan Mason Chesney Archives to be with the rest of the Historical Collection.

Composed Of

Found 4 record(s)

Reference Code and Titlesort by Reference Code and Title ascending	Key (Collection)sort by Key (Collection) ascending	Dates	Record Levelsort by Record Level ascending	Hierarchysort by Hierarchy ascending
Biographical Material	87521	1926, 1904-1935, n.d., 1904-1926, 1928	Series	CollectionVanCC- Carolyn Conant Van Blarcom Collection
Correspondence	87522	1909-1916, 1947-1957	Series	CollectionVanCC- Carolyn Conant Van Blarcom Collection
Photographs	87524	c. 1875-1920's	Series	CollectionVanCC- Carolyn Conant Van Blarcom Collection
Publications, Writings, and Speeches	87523	1914-1934	Series	CollectionVanCC- Carolyn Conant Van Blarcom Collection

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