Old Milwaukee Hospital
- Address: 2200 W Kilbourn Ave
- Vicinity: Between N 23rd and N 20th St
The Milwaukee Hospital is locally significant under Criterion A as an intact example of a major urban voluntary hospital associated with events that have made significant contributions to the broad patterns of our history. It was a center of important surgical and medical research, innovation and medical education. It was a leader in radiological science since 1912, in nursing and health education, critical care and health care administration. The period of significance is from 1912, dating from the first extant construction, to 1958 with the construction of the last addition most strongly associated with the historic significance of the property. While the later additions carried the tradition of setting and innovation, they fall far outside the 50 year rule for inclusion and are therefore outside of the period of significance.
Milwaukee Hospital campus is significant for its nearly half-century association with Herman Fritschel, a leader and pioneering figure in the emergence of hospital administration as a profession and in organization of healthcare in Wisconsin. For forty-one years, from 1902 through 1943, Fritschel served as the General Director of Milwaukee Hospital - a revolutionary period of history of medicine in the organization and function of hospitals. Fritschel remained as President of the Milwaukee Hospital Managing Board until 1949, and though his influence on continued development of the hospital building plan continued into the late 1950s. The campus we see today is the realization of Fritschel's vision of the ideal hospital. During Fritschel's long tenure, Milwaukee Hospital evolved from a small facility primarily devoted to persons who lacked access to domestic home healthcare, to a nationally recognized urban hospital that offered the full spectrum of modern medical and surgical treatments.
For more than half a century, Fritschel was a leading figure in the professionalization of hospital administration, and he was a leader in healthcare delivery in Milwaukee and throughout Wisconsin. In 1913, Fritschel joined the American Hospital Association, an increasingly important professional group working to raise hospital standards across the nation. In 1920, Fritschel helped found and later served as the president of the Protestant Hospital Association of America. Adding to his stature in the history of hospital administration is his role in 1933 as one the initial collaborators and executive committee members in establishing the American College of Hospital Administrators (now the American College of Healthcare Executives) a new professional organization that set the first standards for hospital administrators in the United States. The organization Fritschel help found continues to influence the healthcare industry seven decades later. Locally, in 1924, he helped establish the Milwaukee Hospital Council. From 1920-1927, he served as the president of the Wisconsin Hospital Association. Fritschel was also among the architects of the Blue Cross of Wisconsin hospital insurance plan. - NRHP, 1 June 2006