| Creator | Thomas, Gertrude Barbour |
| Title | Gertrude Barbour Thomas papers |
| Dates | 1910-1980 (bulk 1910-1912) |
| Identification | MS 148 |
| Quantity | 0.5 linear feet (1 manuscript container) |
| Collection Abstract | The Gertrude Barbour Thomas papers contains material from Thomas' years at Simmons including class notes from both her time as a student and as an instructor; correspondence from Simmons Professor Percy G. Stiles, her thesis advisor; her master's thesis; and commencement information from her undergraduate graduation from Simmons in 1910. Also included are published articles by Thomas (including one by Percy G. Stiles); copies of obituaries of both Gertrude Barbour Thomas and her husband, Harold; and two reproduced portrait photographs, one from 1910 and one from circa 1940. |
| Historical Abstract | Gertrude Barbour Thomas, born in 1889, earned her undergraduate degree from Simmons College in 1910, and in 1911 received the first master's degree awarded by the College. After earning her biology Master's degree she served as an Assistant in the Simmons College Department of Biology. She left Simmons to enter the Nurse's Training School at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She married Harold Thomas, M.D. in 1918, with whom she had three children. In 1919 the Thomases moved to Ningpo, China, where Dr. Thomas served as a medical missionary until 1943. They returned to the United States due to World War II. After the war the family returned to Ningpo, but were forced to return to United States in 1950, due to the Communist take-over. The family lived in Albany, N.Y. until Dr. Thomas' death in 1967, at which time Gertrude Barbour Thomas moved to Stoddard, Mass. until her death in 1980. |
| Language | Material in English. |
| Location | Collection may be stored offsite. Please contact Archives staff for more information. |
Collection is open.
Copyright for materials resides with the creators of the items in question, unless otherwise designated.
Please contact the College Archivist with requests to publish any material from the collection.
[Identification of item: description and date], Gertrude Barbour Thomas papers, MS 148, Simmons College Archives, Boston, MA, USA.
The collection was a gift to the Simmons College Archives from Barbara T. Jones, daughter of Gertrude Barbour Thomas.
Accession number: 94.012
Processed by Amy Leimkuhler, 1994
Supervised by Peter Carini and Megan Sniffin-Marinoff, 1994
This collection guide was encoded as part of the LEADS project by Aliza Allen Leventhal, June 29, 2013
Gertrude Barbour Thomas, teacher, nurse, and missionary, was born in 1889 in Fall River, Massachusetts to Rev. and Mrs. Thomas S. Barbour.(1) Thomas received her undergraduate degree in Household Economics from Simmons College in 1910 and in 1911, she received the first master's degree awarded at the College. Her master's thesis was entitled Regional Activity in Skeletal Muscle and was acclaimed by her advisor, Percy G. Stiles, to be "a real landmark in neuromuscular physiology."(2) After earning her biology master's degree, Thomas served for four years as an Assistant in the Simmons College Department of Biology. She left Simmons to enter the Nurses' Training School at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Thomas married Harold Thomas, M.D. in 1918 with whom she had three children. In 1919, the Thomas' moved to Ningpo, China where Dr. Thomas served as a medical missionary for the American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society at the Hwa Mei Hospital. Thomas and her family were interned by the Japanese after the outbreak of World War II and returned to the United States in 1943. The family returned to Ningpo from 1947-1950 when the Communist take-over again forced their return to the U.S. Thomas lived with her family in Albany, NY, where her husband practiced medicine until his death in 1967. Thomas returned to the Barbour family summer home in Stoddard, MA in 1967 and remained there until her death in 1980, at the age of 91.
Biographical data was compiled from obituaries and publications and a letter from Percy G. Stiles to Gertrude Barbour Thomas, dated January 27, 1928.
The Gertrude Barbour Thomas papers contains material from Thomas' years at Simmons including class notes from both her time as a student and as an instructor; correspondence from Simmons Professor Percy G. Stiles, her thesis advisor; her master's thesis; and commencement information from her undergraduate graduation from Simmons in 1910. Included are published articles by Thomas and Percy G. Stiles; copies of obituaries of both Mrs. Thomas and her husband, Harold; and two reproduced portrait photographs, one from 1910 and one from ca. 1940. There is a copy of the Simmons Review containing an article written by Mrs. Thomas describing her experiences in Ningpo, China where she lived with her medical missionary husband and family. The article was written in 1932 when Mrs. Thomas and her children returned to US without her husband because of the trouble in Northern China between China and Japan. Her husband returned the publication to Mrs. Thomas with a note written on the cover explaining that he did not want to keep it because it was dangerously anti-Japanese. Both letters in the collection are from Mrs. Thomas' thesis advisor, Percy G. Stiles; one was written in 1911 and the other in 1928.
These and related materials may be found under the following headings in online catalogs.
Collection is arranged into 6 series:
Box 1
Box 1
Box 1
Box 1
Box 1
Box 1
