Solomon Thomspon
*Solomon Thompson was born on this date in 1870. He was a Black Physician.
From Charlestown, West Virginia, Solomon Henry Thompson graduated from Storer College in Harper’s Ferry, VA, and in 1892 received his medical degree from Howard University in Washington, D.C. In 1898, Dr. Thompson settled in Kansas City, Kansas, where he opened a pharmacy. In the late nineteenth century, Blacks in the Kansas City area had virtually no access to hospital care. Home remedies served as the only health care for most families. In 1905, with another Black physician, T.C. Unthank, M. D.,
Thompson founded Douglass Hospital and Training School for Nurses. Douglass Hospital was one of the first clinics west of the Mississippi to serve the Black community, while all ethnic groups were welcome. Thompson’s hospital operated through the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1924, the hospital purchased a new building.
In 1937, it moved to the campus of Western University. As segregation of area hospitals declined after World War II, patients and income gradually decreased at Douglass Hospital, and the hospital’s situation declined throughout the 1950s and 60s. Finally, in 1977, the hospital closed permanently. Thompson was affiliated with Douglass Hospital for over fifty years. Dr. Solomon Thompson died on December 11, 1950. Reference:
University of Kansas Medical Center Archives. African American History 1991: The African Influence: Past, Present, Future.
Yenser, Thomas, ed. Who's Who in Colored America. Brooklyn, NY: Thomas Yenser, 1940.
Hulston, Nancy J. "The Founding and History of Douglass Hospital, Kansas City, Kansas." Department of History and Philosophy of Medicine Newsletter, vol. 1, no. 1, Spring 1996.
