Image
June 27, 2023
The collected papers and photographs of the Delaware Anti-Tuberculosis Society, including later documents as it transitioned into the Delaware Lung Association and later the American Lung Association of Delaware.
The Society operated several facilities throughout New Castle County, chief among them the "Hope Farm Sanatorium." Hope Farm, originally located at a site along Brandywine Creek, was moved to a site alongside the present-day Newport Gap Pike near Marshallton in 1910. The sanatorium initially refused to admit Black patients, and in response to criticism from Black community leaders, the Society opened the segregated Edgewood Sanatorium nearby in 1915. The two facilities remained segregated until 1957.
In 1919, the Society opened "Sunnybrook Cottage," a center to house children who had been exposed to tuberculosis but did not yet show symptoms (a "preventatorium"), across the street from Hope Farm. Two years later, Hope Farm was renamed "Brandywine Sanatorium"; after Emily Bissell's death in 1948, the Society changed the name a final time, to the Emily P. Bissell Hospital. This building remained in operation until 2015.
NOTE: Because the Society's main sanatorium changed names throughout its life, the items in this collection use whatever name the hospital was called at the time the item was created. "Hope Farm Sanatorium," "Brandywine Sanatorium," and "Emily P. Bissell Hospital" all refer to the same facility. "Sunnybrook Cottage" and "Edgewood Sanatorium," however, were separate. An approximate timeline of the main facility's name is as follows:
1907-1921: "Hope Farm Sanatorium"
1921-1955: "Brandywine Sanatorium"
1955-Present: "Emily P. Bissell Hospital"