Introduction
In its 166-year history, the Feinberg School of Medicine has had four names, five locations, and an evolving relationship with Northwestern University. From its founding as part of another university in 1859 to being fully integrated into Northwestern in 1906, the medical school, as well as Northwestern’s other professional schools, have always been physically separate from the university while still trying to maintain a sense of connection with the Evanston campus and each other. In the 1920s, Northwestern embarked on one of its largest-ever projects: combining the professional schools on a new campus.
Credits
Curated and designed by Emma Florio, MLIS, Archives & Research Specialist, with support from Katie Lattal, MA, Special Collections Librarian, and Emma Wilson, Communications Coordinator.
The medical school’s fourth location contained a clinical amphitheater, a lecture hall, and laboratories that were equipped to give students a strong foundation in the basic sciences. A dispensary building was quickly added to house the school’s free clinics. Within 20 years, though, the school had outgrown the buildings and was looking at options to expand onto adjacent land.
The other professional schools (Dental, Law, and Commerce) were outgrowing their shared building as well. By the 1910s, University leadership were discussing bringing these schools together on a single campus, to reduce long term expenditures and to create a stronger university spirit. One prominent trustee wanted them all moved to Evanston. The Dean of the Law School preferred being near the Criminal Courts. They would eventually settle for a stretch of land north of the Loop named for the eccentric squatter who had illegally claimed it for decades.
The announcement for the medical school’s 1907-08 school year (above) describes the many facilities available to students, including in the Department of Physiology. Images below are from 1901 and 1906 announcements.
Source: Quarterly Bulletin of Northwestern University Medical School 9, no. 1 (June 1907); 3, no. 1(June 1901); 8, no. 1 (June 1906).
The medical school spent most of its first 67 years on the Near South Side, close to the homes of some of the city’s wealthiest residents. By the 1890s, though, industry, railroads, and public transit were encroaching on the area, bringing pollution and congestion. As the wealthy moved north to what became the Gold Coast, European immigrants and African American migrants from the South came to the area in search of jobs. While this changing racial and socioeconomic makeup was never an explicit reason for the school to move north, leadership did acknowledge that it would affect the type of patients who visited the school’s free clinics. They anticipated fewer Black patients and more of the city’s growing population of immigrants in their new location.
As early as 1908, Northwestern’s business manager William Dyche had suggested moving the professional schools to an undeveloped area a few blocks north of the Chicago River. A squatter named George Streeter had occupied the land for almost 20 years and had been illegally selling parcels to unsuspecting buyers while fighting off the legal landowners. After years of battles, both legal and physical, Streeter’s settlement was finally removed in 1918. In an ironic twist of fate, the area would be named Streeterville after the infamous former resident whom the city sought to remove for so long.
Police attempted to evict Streeter from the land numerous times, including in 1902, as seen in these photos. (Above left) Police destroy the shack where Streeter lived. (Above right) Streeter (seated with top hat) sits with his wife outside of the tent he used during these eviction battles.
Sources: (l) “Deputy Sheriffs and Police Raze Streeter’s Shanty,” Chicago Tribune, August 13, 1902. (r) Ballard, E. G., Captain Streeter, Pioneer (Chicago: Emery Publishing Service, 1914), facing 160.
