Origins of a local hospital: the real story

An examination of the papers that document the creation and development of America's earliest health care and social institutions reveals concerns common to both the mid-nineteenth and the late twentieth centuries. Such sources give invaluable insight into how community leaders reacted to tensions and inequalities that still exist. They explain how some organizations worked to extend the benefits of democracy to the less fortunate. The documents that contain these stories need to be preserved. A group of health care-related archival organizations in Rochester, New York has united to make their documents available to researchers.