The collection houses photographs created by the American Women's Hospitals Service (AWHS) from 1917 to 1982 to document and promote the organization's work to provide health care to under-serviced populations in the United States and abroad. The photographs are part of a larger collection of AWHS records with a separate finding aid: American Women’s Hospitals records, 1917-1982 (WMSC010).

The AWHS photographs were frequently used in fundraising and publicity campaigns and as a result are frequently annotated to identify the primary subject, geographic location and, occasionally, individuals. Together, the photographs provide a graphic chronicle of the variety and forms of AWHS fieldwork worldwide. The images are arranged alphabetically by geographic location, with a few files at the end containing portraits of AWHS personnel and significant women in medicine associated with the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania. In addition to the photographic record, this collection also includes a few files containing correspondence of Dr. Esther Lovejoy, and written material used by Dr. Alma Dea Morani to prepare for a lecture in 1974.

Researchers will find images of field and clinic work conducted in Africa, Albania, Bolivia, France, Greece, India, Korea, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, United States, Vietnam and Yugoslavia, to name a few, from 1917 to 1982. Countries with particularly robust representation in the collection include Greece and the United States, closely followed by China, India and Turkey. A majority of the images depict AWHS members treating patients whose health suffered from the devastation of war in Europe and elsewhere, especially after WWI, and issues of health resulting from abject poverty and malnutrition. Photographs taken in Greece also document the interaction between the AWHS staff and residents of numerous communities in which AWHS maintained clinics.

The files regarding the United States document the "Rural Services" division of the AWHS, which included service in the Blue Ridge Mountain region, Kentucky, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and other areas from the 1920s to the 1970s. The earliest images in these files depict visiting doctors and nurses who traveled into remote regions of the rural south, administering healthcare and preventative healthcare education to families at their homes, particularly during the 1920s and 1930s. Later images often depict health care provided in established clinics. In particular, there are numerous photographs taken in the Woman's Maternity Shelter in Greenville, South Carolina during the 1940s, and images related to education programs and the fight against pellagra and other diseases in the southern United States from the 1920s to the 1950s.

In addition to photographic documentation of AWHS's efforts, this collection also contains portraits of doctors, nurses, and other personnel who supported and carried out the organization's efforts throughout the twentieth century. A majority of the portraits are identified, although there are some folders that contain portraits of unidentified people and places. Also included at the end of the collection are some correspondence and other documents that give evidence to Dr. Esther Lovejoy's and Dr. Alma Morani's involvement in the organization during the latter half of the twentieth century.

Researchers interested in social history; the history of women in medicine; public health issues; the health effects of war, poverty and malnutrition; and/or the American rural south may find this collection useful.