Researched and Written by
Dr. Fred Stamler

In 1920 the University needed help in solving another funding problem. Dr. Oscar H. Plant of the University of Pennsylvania had accepted the position of Professor and Head of a new Department of Pharmacology with the understanding that a new building to provide space for a modern laboratory of Pharmacology was to be provided. When no funding for this was forthcoming from the State, W.R. Boyd (still Finance Chairman of the State Board of Regents) sought out Abraham Flexner for aid and advice. Flexner was now a member of the General Education Board, sponsored by Carnegie, the Rockefellers, and other prominent individuals working for the betterment of education, and which had close connections to the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations.

Flexner had continued to be highly influential and keenly interested in medical education, and was much impressed with the progress made by Iowa since 1910. He gave most of the credit for this to the leadership of W.R. Boyd, President Jessup and George Baker, Chairman of the Iowa Board of Education. After listening to Boyd’s proposal for funding of a new laboratory building, Flexner countered with the concept of a new hospital and laboratory building to complete the new westside complex with Children’s and Psychopathic Hospitals. To finance this scheme, he undertook to raise one-half the necessary funds, if the State of Iowa would supply the other half. After prolonged discussion, an agreement was reached and in December of 1922 Flexner was able to announce the gift of two and one quarter million by the Rockefeller Foundation and the General Education Board. The following spring the Iowa General Assembly passed a bill providing for Iowa’s share of the building cost. On June 17, 1924, Governor N.E. Kendall turned the first spadeful of sod, and in the fall of 1928 the new buildings were formally dedicated.

Abraham Flexner, almost single handedly, was able to persuade his associates of the wisdom of this generous and disproportionate gift to a single educational institution. First, he convinced them of the great value of establishing a truly first-rate medical school in a section of the country where none existed. He pointed out that this would stimulate neighboring states to emulate Iowa by generating superior schools of their own. Secondly, he was able to convince his colleagues that the Iowa leaders - Boyd, Jessup, and Baker - possessed such high qualities of dedication, integrity, and capability that full confidence could be accorded them to accomplish their goal.

The Perkins Law, enacted by the State Legislature in 1916, had a most important influence on medical care in Iowa by mandating a State Crippled Children’s Service to be established in Iowa City. To meet the requirements for this, the Children’s Hospital was authorized, funded, and built, and opened for service in 1919. This did much to alleviate the deficiency in patients for teaching in Pediatrics, although the emphasis was on chronic diseases. A second legislative measure, the Haskell-Klaus Law, enacted in 1919, was designed to promote statewide care for indigent adults at the University Hospital in Iowa City.

The Children’s Hospital was the first medical building to be located on the west side of the Iowa River, and in 1921 it was joined by a new Psychopathic Hospital.