Henry Dwight Chapin

In 1933 Dr. Henry Dwight Chapin received the Columbia University medal for “outstanding contributions to problems relating to the care of children and as a pioneer in hospital social service.” His whole life as a man and a physician was tirelessly devoted to the helping of babies and little children. From the beginning of his medical studies he specialized in pediatrics and was professor of that subject for thirty-four years at the Post-Graduate Medical School. He was also director and attending physician of the babies’ and children’s wards of the Post-Graduate Hospital and developed there the first working plan for hospital social service ever organized in this country. He founded the Speedwell Society for boarding out feeble and undernourished children under the supervision of doctors and trained nurses and, with Mrs. Chapin, organized the Alice Chapin Adoption Nursery for placing babies with foster parents. Through this last still very active work some two thousand babies have been adopted into welcoming families. He was always opposed to institutional life for infants and children. “We are more concerned,” he once said, “to have children get into homes where they can be individually and personally cared for, than to have them receive medical care alone. Make the child conscious that it is anchored in the affection of a home and his well being is on the way to permanent security.” Dr. Chapin was active in many public undertakings connected with children, particularly the Milk Commission of New York City and the Childrens Welfare Federation, and not only lectured and taught but also wrote a number of books and articles on pediatrics. He was a familiar figure in the Club until the last few years before his death. His was a fruitful and active life of vision and devoted kindliness, of pioneer work in medicine, and of courageous and wise building for the future of the country through the lives of the innumerable babies and little children he helped to a fair start.

Geoffrey Parsons
1942 Century Memorials