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Photographer: Bernard Fisher
Taken: July 10, 2009
Caption: St. Philip Hospital Display
Additional Description: In 1916, the Medical College of Virginia initiated a $250,000 fund raising campaign to build a hospital for “the care of Richmond’s colored population.” Eppa Hunton, Jr. and Lewis Z. Morris, members of the Executive Committee of the Board of Visitors, led that effort that ultimately raised sufficient funds to construct the seven story, brick and limestone building that opened on November 1, 1920. The Board of Visitors named it new facility St. Philip Hospital for “Philip the deacon, who preached, did miracles, and baptized many.” Originally St. Philip Hospital had a capacity of 146 beds.

With the opening of the new hospital, MCV established a school for African-American nurses and five women began their training in fall of 1920. Over the next 42 years, 688 women were graduated from the St. Philip School of Nursing before the school was closed in the fall of 1962. Student nurses received their clinical training in St. Philip Hospital and cared for patients under the supervision of the St. Philip School of Nursing faculty and staff nurses of the hospital.

The St. Philip Hospital also sponsored a series of post-graduate clinics for African-American physicians in the South Atlantic region.

St. Philip was an integral part of the MCV hospital division until the opening of the new Main Hospital in June 1982. St. Philip Hospital was razed in 1993.
Submitted: July 11, 2009, by Bernard Fisher of Richmond, Virginia.
Database Locator Identification Number: p70238
File Size: 1.563 Megabytes

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