July of 1937 saw the death of Dr. Elizabeth Balch Holmes in Oakland, NJ. A graduate of Wellesley College and the Women’s Medical College of NY, she devoted most of her life to institutional work helping manic depressives, alcoholics, and other institutionalized members of society. This time period would have also included those suffering from Alzheimers. As investigations decades later would reveal, conditions in these hospitals would shock most Americans.
Dr. Holmes worked in hospitals that treated both voluntary, committed patients, and the criminally insane; often with a staff containing one or two trained nurses. In New York, where Dr. Holmes had her primary residence and practice, the New York State had only only changed the classification of these instutions to “state hospitals” in 1890; prior to that they were defined as “lunatic asylums”. There were approximately 13,000 patients in 1890, and this number rose to over 31,000 by 1910.
The situation was worsened during the pandemic of 1918, when for a six week period in autumn of that year, New York reported over thirty thousand deaths. In Newark, NJ, firemen volunteered to help dig trenches and bury the dead in ceremonies without public funerals due to restrictions to prevent the spread of the disease. With many doctors oversees serving combat troops in WWI, doctors like Elizabeth Blach Holmes took up the slack, but without the respect or rights due her.
In addition to the work she accomplished in her professional life, Dr. Holmes also lent her support to the fight for women’s suffrage. She was involved in a major protest in June of 1915 as recent immigrant men were sworn in as citizens. The women protested that it took the government 2 hours to weed out the unfit, and three more minutes to swear in the new citizens. The protest was organized by the Empire State Campaign Committee, but they sought out the assistance of the College Equal Suffrage League in order to get commitments from women with a professional stature. Leaders in the suffrage movement needed women of social stature who competed with men in the workplace, and the College League provide support from recent graduates and women in respected professions. The fact that Dr.Holmes would be attending the protest was publicized in newspapers prior to the event in order to encourage other professional women to attend.
It was no small act for women to protest publicly, especially to protest an actual event such as the swearing in of foreign born men who had only recently landed on American shores. The June 1915 protest outside the Federal Building in New York City was deemed outrageous by many. One male passerby shouted, “I was going to vote for them before, but after they have acted this way, never!” But even more shocking was the response from the judge presiding over the ceremony who said, “I am not for suffrage…I have an open mind. I don’t think it is is of very great importance. I don’t consider my own vote very seriously…I think that if every class is represented as a class, that is all that is needed. I would be willing to abrogate my own vote.” As Dr. Holmes was employed working with the mentally ill, we can imagine the thoughts that crossed her mind at the opinions of this magistrate.
Dr. Holmes died in July of 1937 after a two month illness. Her civic dedication and efforts towards achieving rights for women continued. A sister article concerning the work of suffragist Vera Beggs is available on the The Wyckoff Journal.
How interesting! I wonder if she has an descendants still in Oakland.