George Peabody Wetmore papers on Newport Hospital (PSNCA.H.029)

Historical note

Former Rhode Island governor and senator George Peabody Wetmore served as a trustee for the Newport Hospital from at least 1909 to 1920. This series of papers includes correspondence with donors, community members, and newspapers; lists of subscribers (donors); and notes and administrative documents related to fundraising for the hospital.

During the summer of 1917, Newport Hospital faced a financial deficit for the fiscal year ending June 30. Plans for construction of new children’s and maternity wards halted in June due to increased costs of materials and labor due to World War I, to be paid for by subscription funds raised the previous summer collected by Dr. Charles Easton. At the same time, the hospital expanded its administrative building. Major funds raised for the hospital in the summer of 1917 included a bequest from writer Eliza Woolsey Howland (a sister-in-law of architect Richard Morris Hunt) and a Children’s Fair.

The hospital’s leaders encouraged local pastors to appeal for donations during church services, and the local newspaper agreed to publish the names of new subscribers. In a letter to the editor of the Newport Mercury and Weekly News, Wetmore explained the hospital’s costs, exacerbated by an outbreak of diphtheria, and described the support it received from other groups like the Women’s Aid Association of the Newport Hospital. Wetmore corresponded with Jane Parsons Swan (Mrs. James Andrews Swan), the Women’s Aid Association President, during this time. By September, the deficit had been reduced from over $17,000 to around $3,000.

Several folders in the collection relate to fundraising efforts for the Nurses’ Home and the operation of the hospital’s heating plant, dated earlier than the major fundraising campaign of 1917.