South Chicago Community Hospital operating room

This photo depicts an early operating room with doctor and nurses at South Chicago Community Hospital (now Trinity). In 1917, it was a small foundering institution, close to bankruptcy, when Clara Dorothy Schafer (1898-1972) was brought on as assistant superintendent. After the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, neighborhood leaders decided that the institution was worth saving. Schafer became superintendent in 1920 and a well-known and beloved figure. Known for her incredible devotion to the hospital, and doing everything from scrubbing floors to visiting patients, she turned the institution around. She also made the School of Nursing a success, expanding an occupation that was a key one for women at the time. The Museum holds a number of photographs and a scrapbook of nurses who worked at South Chicago Community Hospital.