Lisa Levenstein
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807832721
- eISBN:
- 9781469605883
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807889985_levenstein.9
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter examines the publicly provided health care at Philadelphia General Hospital (PGH), which was of critical importance to poor African American women, who needed a safe and respectful place ...
More
This chapter examines the publicly provided health care at Philadelphia General Hospital (PGH), which was of critical importance to poor African American women, who needed a safe and respectful place to care for their own and their children's medical needs. This hospital was the most successful institution in the city in terms of the quality of the services it provided and the loyalty it commanded from a wide range of citizens. As increasing numbers of African American women sought and received subsidized treatment at PGH, critics charged that its policies encouraged “illegitimacy” and irresponsible state expenditures. Yet these same policies played a vital role in encouraging and enabling working-class African American women to choose PGH over all of the other hospitals in the city and turn it into a place they called their own.Less
This chapter examines the publicly provided health care at Philadelphia General Hospital (PGH), which was of critical importance to poor African American women, who needed a safe and respectful place to care for their own and their children's medical needs. This hospital was the most successful institution in the city in terms of the quality of the services it provided and the loyalty it commanded from a wide range of citizens. As increasing numbers of African American women sought and received subsidized treatment at PGH, critics charged that its policies encouraged “illegitimacy” and irresponsible state expenditures. Yet these same policies played a vital role in encouraging and enabling working-class African American women to choose PGH over all of the other hospitals in the city and turn it into a place they called their own.
