Old Oregon magazine, 1923 - 1925

This collection houses a variety of material formats and evidences a number of subjects. Photographs include portraits of Ada’s family, including her father, brother, and husband, as well as herself; and the first Christmas celebration at Doernbecher, complete with Santa and reindeer. Ada’s guestbook lists visits by her almost exclusively female friends and associates from across the country between 1907 and 1927.

The centerpiece of this collection is the scrapbook of news clippings. Its cover is labeled “University of Oregon Medical School-Shriner’s Hospital for Crippled Children-Doernbecher Memorial Hospital for Children [-] From 1921.” This scrapbook chronicles the growth of the medical school in general, and specifically the search for funding and the actual construction of the Medical Science Building (1918-1919), Mackenzie Hall (1921-1922), a children’s clinic at the Free Dispensary downtown (1921), Multnomah County Hospital (1923), Shriner’s Hospital & Veterans’ Hospital (1925), and Doernbecher Children’s Hospital (1925-1926). Surprisingly, there is only one clipping on the actual opening of the Children’s hospital in July 1926. Sources include local papers such as the Oregonian, the Oregon Journal (the paper founded by C. S. Jackson, the donor of the land the hospital was built on), and the Portland Spectator magazine. The upkeep of the scrapbook faltered as time went on. Pagination ends and over a hundred blank pages follow, only to begin again haphazardly with clippings going back to the 1920s.

Publications in the collection include Old Oregon magazine editions titled “Annual Medical Number,” editions of a University of Oregon publication focusing on the medical school; photocopied clippings; "A History of Doernbecher Memorial Hospital for Children;” a Program of the 24th Annual Meeting of the North Pacific Surgical Association; and a copy of Spectator magazine that includes an article on the Medical School. Additionally, a time-line of Doernbecher’s history, assembled for the 60th Anniversary, is included in the collection.

Researchers interested in the history of the Children’s Hospital and the greater medical school, as well as those interested in the history of the Doernbecher family, will find helpful material in this collection.