Alice Weld Tallant

Alice Weld Tallant (July 14, 1875 – May 31, 1958) was an American physician and medical school professor. When her employment as a professor of obstetrics was terminated at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, it sparked the "Tallant Affair", in which students staged a strike and several colleagues resigned their positions in protest.

Alice Weld Tallant
A white woman with dark hair, wearing a high-collared white lace blouse, in an oval frame
Alice Weld Tallant, from the 1911 yearbook of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania
BornJuly 14, 1875
Boston, Massachusetts
DiedMay 31, 1958
Occupation(s)Physician, medical school professor
Known forCroix de Guerre (1918)

Early life and education

Alice "Elsie" Weld Tallant was born in Boston, the daughter of Henry Pinkham Tallant and Mary Gardner Tallant. She graduated from Smith College in 1897,[1][2] and earned her medical degree at Johns Hopkins University in 1902, with further training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard Medical School,[3] in New York and in Berlin.[4]

Career

Tallant was an intern at the New England Hospital for Women and Children from 1902 to 1905. She lectured on hygiene at Bates College from 1904 to 1905.[4] During World War I, she went to France as one of the directors of the Smith College Relief Unit,[5][6][7] and later worked with Anne Morgan in the American Committee for Devastated France,[8] treating influenza among war refugees; her service earned her a Croix de Guerre in 1918.[9]

From 1905 to 1923, Tallant was a professor of obstetrics at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania,[3][10] and was a practicing obstetrician at Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia from 1905 until her death in 1958. When her reappointment at the medical college was refused without public explanation in 1923,[11] students went on a strike,[12] alumnae presented a petition in support of Tallant, and several of her colleagues, including Ruth Webster Lathrop, resigned in protest. This controversy is recalled in school history as the "Tallant Affair".[13][14]

Tallant was an obstetrician at Philadelphia General Hospital from 1922 to 1928. From 1928 to 1938, she was a social worker and physician at the Joy Settlement. From 1906 to 1950, she was a physician on staff at the Girls' House of Refuge.[4] She served on the executive committee of the American Child Hygiene Association.[15] She was the author of A Text-book of Obstetrical Nursing (1922).[16]

Publications
  • "Some Observations on the Occurrence of Broadbent's Sign" (1904)[17]
  • "An Obstetric Anomaly" (1908)[18]
  • "The Question of Scholarships" (1911)[19]
  • "A Study of Ophthalmia in the New-born: With Nine Charts" (1912)[20]
  • "'Pre-natal Care' as Conducted in the College Hospital" (1916)[21]
  • "The Pros and Cons of Accouchement Forcé in Placenta Previa" (1917)[22]
  • A Text-book of Obstetrical Nursing (1922)[16]
  • "A Study of the Results in Face Presentations" (1923)[23]

Personal life

Tallant died in 1958. There is a small collection of her papers in the Smith College Archives.[4] The papers of the Smith College Relief Unit include materials related to Tallant's World War I experiences.[24]

References
  1. Shearer, Benjamin F. (2007). Home Front Heroes: A Biographical Dictionary of Americans During Wartime. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 796. ISBN 978-0-313-33423-8.
  2. "Smith Freshmen Win". The Boston Globe. 1896-03-22. p. 1. Retrieved 2022-07-08 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (1911). Scalpel : the 1911 yearbook of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. p. 18 – via Internet Archive.
  4. Alice Weld Tallant papers, Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History, Smith College Libraries.
  5. "The Daring Women of Smith College's Relief Unit". The Chapin School. February 26, 2020. Retrieved 2022-07-08.
  6. Gaines, Ruth Louise (1920). Ladies of Grécourt: The Smith College Relief Unit in the Somme. E.P. Dutton. p. 233.
  7. "Woman Relief Unit Member Torn with Grief for Peasants". Evening Public Ledger. 1918-03-29. p. 10. Retrieved 2022-07-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. "Women Physicians Going Abroad for War Service". Evening Public Ledger. 1918-05-04. p. 12. Retrieved 2022-07-08 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. Chrisagis, Ximena. "'Miss Tallant...docteur en medicine': A Woman Physician in World War I France" Ohio Academy of Medical History Annual Conference Presentations (April 2005).
  10. "Women to Study Health Problems". Harrisburg Telegraph. 1915-12-23. p. 11. Retrieved 2022-07-08 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. "Medical Alumnae Offer Compromise". The Philadelphia Inquirer. 1923-06-16. p. 13. Retrieved 2022-07-08 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. "Woman's College Students Strike". The Morning Post. 1923-03-15. p. 19. Retrieved 2022-07-08 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. "Martha Tracy and the Tallant Affair", Drexel University Legacy Center.
  14. Peitzman, Steven Jay (2000). A New and Untried Course: Woman's Medical College and Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1850-1998. Rutgers University Press. pp. 147–159. ISBN 978-0-8135-2816-8.
  15. American Child Hygiene Association (1920). Transactions of the Annual Meeting. Arno Press.
  16. Tallant, Alice Weld (1922). A Text-book of Obstetrical Nursing. Lea & Febiger.
  17. TALLANT, ALICE WELD (1904-10-27). "Some Observations on the Occurrence of Broadbent's Sign". The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. 151 (17): 457–461. doi:10.1056/NEJM190410271511702. ISSN 0096-6762.
  18. Tallant, Alice Weld (1908-03-07). "An Obstetric Anomaly". Journal of the American Medical Association. L (10): 785. doi:10.1001/jama.1908.02530360047016. ISSN 0002-9955.
  19. Tallant, Alice Weld (July 1911). "The Question of Scholarships". The Smith Alumnae Quarterly. 2: 181–185.
  20. Tallant, Alice Weld. "A Study of Ophthalmia in the New-Born: With Nine Charts" The American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children 66 (5) (November 1912): 866,
  21. Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania Alumnae Association (1916). Transactions of the ... Annual Meeting of the Alumnae Association of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. The Association.
  22. Tallant, Alice Weld (1917). "The Pros and Cons of Accouchement Forcé in Placenta Previa". The American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children. 76: 46–50.
  23. Tallant, Alice Weld (July 1923). "A Study of the Results in Face Presentations". American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. 6 (1): 116–120. doi:10.1016/s0002-9378(16)42808-5. ISSN 0002-9378.
  24. Smith College Relief Unit; Hawes, Harriet Boyd; Tallant, Alice Weld; Andrews, Hannah Dunlop; Wolfs, Marie Leonie; Chapin, Anne McClallan; Biddlecome, Elizabeth; Ainsworth, Dorothy S; Bliss, Elizabeth Howe (1917). Smith College Relief Unit records, 1917-1997. OCLC 52253821.
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