Editor’s Note: The following is the first in a new series of articles about the history of Massachusetts General Hospital from our intern, Andrew Glyman. Andrew is digging into the back archives of the hospital’s 200+ year history to find some of the interesting, inspiring and unusual stories that have helped to shape the hospital’s past, present and future.

Elizabeth Robinson Scovil (1849 -1934) was among the first to graduate from the Massachusetts General Hospital Training School for Nurses and is considered a pioneer for work as a writer and advocate for nurses, mothers and children. 

Born in New Brunswick, Canada on April 30, 1849, Scovil came to Boston in 1878 to enter what was then known as the Boston School for Nurses. Her many articles written about nursing and published in various popular magazines and newspapers in 1879 and 1880 were the means of bringing in many applicants for training to the school.

After graduating in 1880, Scovil served as Superintendent of the Infirmary of St. Paul’s School for boys in Concord, New Hampshire. She also worked for six years as Superintendent and Instructor at Newport Hospital in Newport, Rhode Island. 

She returned to Canada in 1903 to care for her nieces and nephews following the illness and death of her sister-in-law, where she continued to write books and articles on nursing, health care and child care until her death in 1934 at the age of 85. 

A Pivotal Time for Nurses 

The Boston Nurse Training School was established in 1873 as a recommendation of the Women’s Education Association of Boston, with the dual goals of elevating the field of nursing through education and providing self-sustaining women with a desirable career option. The Mass General Trustees agreed to partner with the school in its early years before it officially became part of the hospital. .

Scovil and her fellow students entered the school at a time when nurses had as many (or more) duties related to cleaning and housekeeping within the hospital as they had in patient care. They were tasked with sweeping, dusting, washing dishes, mopping, carrying clothes to and from the laundry and gathering ice, among others. The pay was low, the hours were long and the living conditions were cramped. 

In the History of the Massachusetts General Hospital Training School for Nurses (1922), Scovil detailed the nursing students’ challenging living conditions. “Our room overlooked Blossom Street, and whenever the fire bell, which was just across the street, rang, we were wakened until we learned to sleep through the noise. It was stiflingly hot in summer, and must have been bitterly cold in winter.”

As a result of these experiences, Scovil became a strong advocate for nurses’ rights. In an article titled Food For Nurses, she detailed how the poor working conditions for nurses–including insufficient food, lack of sleep and poor wages–put patients’ lives at risk.

“The overtired, underfed nurse is not in a state to observe and report accurately and, with the best will in the world, cannot give her patient that sustained attention which he needs for his best good.”

Scovil also called for head nurses to provide fair and just leadership to the nurses under their supervision.  In her article,  “The Moral Influence of Superintendents and Head Nurses” she states, “It has often amazed me to see how completely some head nurses seem to have forgotten that they were once probationers and assistant nurses themselves. Not a memory, apparently, remains of the trials and difficulties that they themselves underwent in their previous undeveloped existence, before they attained to their present dignity.

The Gift of Knowledge

Scovil was a prolific writer throughout her life, spending thirteen years as the assistant editor of the Ladies Home Journal (1890 to 1903) and twenty years as assistant editor of the American Journal of Nursing (1901 to 1922). 

Scovil was hired by Edward Bok, editor of the Ladies Home Journal, as one of the publication’s first expert advice columnists. She wrote about the importance of cleanliness when taking care of the sick, proper diet and food preparation, as well as heating and ventilation.

In an article titled “Care of the Health,” Scovil wrote about the best way to speak around sick patients. “Whispering should never be permitted in a sick room under any circumstances. Speak in a low, clear tone, and the sufferer, feeling that there is no attempt at concealment, often will not take the trouble to listen…when the doctor makes his visit, tell him in as few words as possible all that is necessary for him to know. Answer his questions briefly and be prepared to give exact information about the patient.” 

She was also the author of over 20 books, including the groundbreaking Preparation for Motherhood, in 1894, which was one of the first books to openly discuss conception, pregnancy and childbirth in an accessible way.

In her introduction, Scovil emphasizes the importance of honest and open communication about the childbearing process. “If mothers talked frankly yet modestly with their daughters, first informing themselves and then teaching their children some of the great central facts of life, there would be less unhappiness, suffering and ill health.”

“A good text book of physiology for mothers is needed,” Scovil adds. “Those in use in schools do not deal with the pelvis further than to say it contains some important organs, which is not sufficient information for women. The text books intended for students of medicine are too technical for the ordinary reader and presuppose a knowledge that she does not have.”

According to an obituary of Scovil that appears in the memoir Meadowlands: A Chronicle of the Scovil Family, “This book, and The Care of Children, so changed women’s lives that when she traveled by train to British Columbia to attend a meeting of the National Council of Women, groups of women gathered on station platforms, calling her name so they could thank her for the gift of knowledge.”

Read More

Elizabeth Scovil writes about her relationship with Florence Nightingale

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