Gardner, George Warren (1872 - 1936)
Role: Brown graduate, Brown University Physician, founder of Gardner HouseDates: class of 1894
Portrait Location: Gardner 102
Artist: William Cushing Loring (1879 - 1959)
Portrait Date: ca. 1915
Medium: oil on board
Dimensions: 19 1/2
Framed Dimensions: 26 3/4
Brown Portrait Number: 226
Brown Historical Property Number: 939
George Warren Gardner was a prominent Providence surgeon and former University Physician at Brown who spent much of his professional career affiliated with Rhode Island Hospital. Along with his wife, Jesse Barker Gardner (BP 227), Gardner bequeathed "Gardner House" to Brown. Gardner House currently provides accommodations for prominent guests of the University.
George Gardner was born in Bristol, Maine, in 1872 to C.C. Gardner and Susan (Bartlett) Gardner. He attended the schools of his native town and then prepared for college at Biddeford High School in Biddeford, Maine. Gardner moved to Rhode Island to attend Brown University, entering with the class of 1894. After receiving his BA, he began work in the Registrar's Office at Brown. After a few years work at Brown, he commenced the study medicine at Harvard Medical School in the class of 1900. While still in his final year at Harvard, he became the House Physician of the Boston Floating Hospital. In the last two years of his medical school program, he also worked as a surgeon at the city's Carney Hospital.
Upon graduating from Harvard Medical School, Gardner became the house physician at Boston's Lying-In Hospital. After one year in that position he returned to Providence to become the University Physician at Brown. Ultimately, Gardner's career brought him to the Rhode Island Hospital where he stayed on staff until retiring in 1924.
On April 7, 1904, he married Jessie Loring Barker (BP 227). They had no children.
Gardner was highly esteemed for his work as a surgeon. On October 29, 1915 he became a Fellow of the Regents of the American College of Surgeons. He was chairman of the educational committee of the Providence Chapter, and put great effort into ACS initiatives after the outbreak of World War I.
To meet the wartime need, Gardner oversaw new courses in medical aid, in which approximately 200 people were enrolled. Gardner's educational committee also worked with the Red Cross to offer a popular course in "Elementary hygiene and home care of the sick" in which 460 people enrolled. Additionally, women were taught to make surgical dressings, and encouraged to produce knitted goods that would be sent to soldiers abroad. Even though there was no shortage of these supplies in New England at the time, Gardner perceived the teaching of skills as, "a safeguard in case we entered into a prolonged war, fought on our own soil." Lest we think this was solely an effort aimed at women, Gardner also stressed the importance of men's involvement "as they may be required for service with the Red Cross organizations with the armed forces of the United States".
On June 6, 1917 Gardner received a telegram asking him to be prepared for active duty in ten days at training camp Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana. Brown University's John Hay Library holds a collection of Barker-Gardner Family papers dating from approximately 1850-1950. This collection includes what Jessie Barker Gardner called their Memory Books". The third Memory Book contains photos from the training camp and an article from The Indianapolis News for Saturday, July 14, 1917 headlined "Medical men abandon practices to go through mill of training for service either in United States or on the Battlefields of Europe." The article called for medical doctors and highlighted their training for the service at the front. It went on to say, "An applicant must be a graduate of a reputable medical school and be between twenty-two and twenty-five years of age. The annual pay of a lieutenant is $2000; a captain $2400; of a major, $3000 with an additional 10 percent in each case for foreign service besides quarters."
On August 6, 1917, George Warren Gardner was appointed Captain in the Medical Section and on March 15, 1918 he rose to the rank of Major. Gardner served at the Base Hospital, Camp Sevier, in Greenville, S.C. and there received a farewell visit from his wife and his mother-in-law. Both Gardner and his wife were expecting him to be sent to France. However, Gardner was to remain at the Camp Sevier Base as chief surgeon.
In October 1918, Gardner went to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to attend an additional month of training. It was a large hospital camp with about 3,000 physicians. In a letter to his wife, dated October 28, 1918, Gardner wrote that the camp contained many German prisoners, who had been placed about 8 miles from his headquarters.
On Dec 27th, 1918 Gardner received a letter from his friend and former superior from Camp Sevier, Lieutenant Colonel John S. Dye. Lieutenant Colonel Dye assigned Gardner to be a surgeon for four months at the Panama Canal Hospital. Dye wrote that since Gardner had not been sent out of the country yet, this would be a pleasant assignment and one he would have liked to take on himself if that had been possible. There was an urgent need for a surgeon there, and so Gardner was asked if he could leave on January 3, and sail from New Orleans on the United Fruit Company steamer for Cristobal, if they were able to give him accommodation. Gardner arrived in Panama on January 18, 1919. He worked as a surgeon at the Ancon hospital and four month later, in May 1919, he was discharged with rank of Major, Medical Corps.
In 1934, two years before his death, and in failing health, Gardner tended his resignation from The Providence Medical Society, the Rhode Island Medical Society, the New England Medical Society and the American Medical Association.
Gardner spent these last two years of his life in Maine where he died in Damariscotta on November 14, 1936. Gardner's obituary highlighted his outstanding career in the medical field. His wife Jessie Barker Gardner died at home almost 12 years later, on July 12, 1948, in the historic house they had worked for years to establish on the Brown campus. For additional information on Gardner House please Jessie Barker Gardner (BP 227)
The Portrait
The portrait of Dr. George Warren Gardner was painted by William Cushing Loring. Loring grew up in the Boston area and studied in New York, Paris, and London. He was a painting instructor at the Rhode Island School of Design when he created this portrait of George Gardner. Loring's works are displayed in the Rhode Island Statehouse, Harvard University and the Museum of Rhode Island School of Design as well as at Brown.