Visitors will learn about Black doctors, nurses, and hospitals for Black patients from Asheville's first tuberculosis sanitorium for Black people established in 1910 to dozens of hospitals by the 1950s.
Nurse Volunteer Program [6]
In the 1880s, tuberculosis, which was also called consumption, had killed one in seven people worldwide. Doctors recommended a “fresh-air cure.” By 1886, Asheville’s air quality and passenger rail service combined to make Asheville a mecca for tuberculosis patients. Black people held jobs in White sanitoriums (tuberculosis hospitals). Meanwhile, discriminatory laws and practices excluded Black people from receiving care.
In 1910, Black physician Dr. William Green Torrence started Asheville’s first tuberculosis sanitorium for Black people in his Eagle Street home. In 1915, Asheville native Dr. John Wakefield Walker opened the Circle Terrace Sanitorium. He was America’s first Black pulmonologist. Black people crowd-funded to establish at least a half dozen Black hospitals between 1910 and 1953. Blue Ridge Hospital, established in 1922 on Clingman Avenue, offered a nursing program for women. In the 1940s, the Veteran’s Hospital in nearby Oteen began hiring Black nurses to serve Black veterans.
