Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Maternity Building (built ca. 1885). (Photo: University Archives Digital Image Collection)
Around the turn of the 20th century, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) opened its maternity pavilion on the site of what is today the Rhoads Pavilion at the intersection of Hamilton Walk and 36th Street.
“That was where, for 80 years, the University had its maternity hospital,” explains Mark Frazier Lloyd, director of Penn’s University Archives and Records Center.
When the pavilion began accepting patients, it had capacity for 15 “confinement cases” a month, or about 180 deliveries a year (compared to the more than 4,000 now done annually at HUP). Two graduating seniors cared for each woman, taking her history and watching her while she—and eventually, her baby—remained on site.
Every patient had her own room to avoid unnecessary exposure to germs, guarding her safety by “a strict system of antisepsis,” according to the 1889-1890 University Catalogue. Back then, “childbirth was considered a very risky event,” Lloyd says. “The whole idea of antiseptic treatment in a hospital with gloves and white gowns grew up in the 1880s.”