Women of Influence - Babette Mandel (1842-1945), Shaping Chicago History.

Babette Mandel around the
time of her wedding, 1871.

Babette Mandel, Great-niece of Michael Reese and wife of one of the founder of Mandel Brothers department store, came to Chicago at the age of four and grew up to become one of the foremost woman philanthropists of Chicago.

Her parents, Emanuel Frank and Elise Reese Frank, left Aufhausen in Bavaria in the summer of 1846, drawn by hopes of greater prosperity.

Michael Reese, an uncle then living in California, encouraged them to come to America and set aside funds for their support. After a journey by ship and stagecoach that took several weeks, the Franks and their ten children arrived in Chicago on Yom Kippur.

The family settled in a house on Clark Street north of Madison. Sadly, in 1855 Emanuel Frank was killed in an accident, and though she excelled at school, Babette was forced to spend much of her childhood helping to maintain the household.

On April 18, 1871, when she was 29, Babette married Emanuel Mandel. Emanuel’s brothers, Leon and Simon, had founded a dry goods store with Leon Klein in 1855. The business was reorganized as the Mandel Brothers store when Klein retired and Emanuel was brought in as a third partner.

The Mandel Brothers store was then located near Clark and Van Buren Streets. When the Chicago Fire destroyed the building in October 1871, just six months after Emanuel and Babette were married, the Mandels re-established their store on the South Side. 

In 1875 they moved to the Colonnade Building on State and Madison, owned by Marshall Field. Intent on building up State Street, Field persuaded the Mandels to stay by means of a generous, long-term lease, and soon the business was flourishing again. 

The Mandels were active members of Sinai Temple, and in 1888, at a meeting held at Sinai, Leon and Emanuel were among those who pledged money to found the Jewish Manual Training School (later the Jewish Training School). The idea behind the School was to give immigrants manual skills that would enable them to support themselves, while also promoting Americanization. Located on the West Side, the School taught cooking, sewing, woodworking, English and citizenship to Eastern European immigrants.

Babette Mandel was prominent among those who organized the School, at first serving as a director, and then as its president. The Jewish Training School closed in 1912; the inrush of immigrants that had made it so essential was largely over by then.

Chicago Lying-In Hospital and Dispensary was founded in 1895 with the help of Babette Mandel. She also served on its board. This was a maternity clinic at first housed in four rooms on Maxwell Street. It was later renamed the Chicago Maternity Center.

Inspired by the success of Hull House, Mrs. Mandel and others established the Maxwell Street Settlement in 1893 as a cultural center for newlyarrived Jewish immigrants. 

Babette Mandel was a leader in many other organizations as well: Chicago Women’s Aid, Sarah Greenebaum Lodge (United Order of True Sisters), the Chicago Section of the [National] Council of Jewish Women, and others. 

The achievement she is best known for, however, is the establishment of the West Side Dispensary in 1903. Originally opened in 1899 at Clinton and Judd Streets, this building was inadequate, and Babette Mandel gave $10,000 to reestablish it at Maxwell and Morgan Streets. Most of the patients were Russian or East European immigrants from the West Side. In 1910, she again gave a large sum of money to establish the Dispensary in new quartersand at this time, the Dispensary was dedicated to the memory of her husband, Emanuel Mandel, who had died in an accident in 1908. Mrs. Mandel continued to support the clinic with large gifts over the years, and in 1928 it was incorporated into Michael Reese Hospital as the Emanuel and Babette Mandel Clinic. 

Most of Babette Mandel’s charity work was carried out while she raised their three children: Frank, Edwin, and Rose. When she died on March 12, 1945, she left $50,000 to the Jewish Charities of Chicago and $25,000 each to Michael Reese Hospital and the Chicago Maternity Center, among other bequests. 

Her son Edwin became president of Mandel Brothers department store and was also president of Michael Reese Hospital. In 1960, Mandel Brothers was sold to the Weiboldt Corporation, which closed the store in the late 1970s or early 80s.

At a time when women were not expected to work outside the home, Babette Mandel, like many women of her generation, found a vocation and purpose that allowed her to extend her role as mother beyond the confines of the home. Her significance lies in the way she used her position of wealth and privilege to help the Jewish community at a time when immigrants were in desperate need.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Mothers' Breast Milk Station in 20th Century Chicago.

Chicago Milk stations were established at the turn of the 20th century to help curb infant mortality rates. The poor could buy a container of milk for a penny. Critics argued that it undermined the benefits of breastmilk, but often these mothers were so malnourished that they could not feed their children properly. Most of these stations were gone by the 1950s. 

A Chicago milk station, circa 1917. This station was at the Chicago Hebrew Institute.

Gertrude Plotzke, RN and the Chicago Milk Station
Today, with the widespread availability of infant formula, it seems unfathomable that at one time, virtual armies of women would gather together, pump their breast milk and donate it to infants they never even knew. Yet that is precisely what Gertrude Plotzke organized for the Chicago Board of Health in 1938, creating a complete system for collecting, sterilizing, storing, and distributing milk to at-risk infants.

Preemie Care
Plotzke was one of 10 children and a lifelong resident of the greater Chicago area. After completing her nursing training at Jackson Park Hospital, she went to work as a public health nurse, caring for mothers and babies in their homes. While earlier breast milk stations were serving sickly infants in other parts of the country, the Mothers' Breast Milk Station organized by Plotzke was unique, targeting premature infants as part of a concerted effort to reduce the city's infant mortality rate.

Chicago was already a center of innovative preemie care under Evelyn Lundeen, RN, then the supervising nurse at Michael Reese Hospital's premature nursery. It was Lundeen's firm conviction that only human breast milk was suitable for her precious charges until they weighed at least 4½ pounds, which became the standard of care. The Breast Milk Station was developed to ensure that human milk would be available at all times.

Works Progress Administration (WPA) Poster, 1937.

Paid by the Ounce
Potential donors were identified by physicians or nurses, who noted when a recently delivered mother under their supervision had an abundance of milk. Almost all donor women were negro, both because the station was located in a predominantly black neighborhood and because negro women were more likely to breastfeed. Despite the bitter racial disharmony of this period, this program was colorblind.

Much like the wet nurses of an earlier era, donors gave milk to earn money. Each woman donated between 16 and 45 ounces per day for 5¢ per ounce, later increased to 13¢ per ounce. Mothers also received transportation and a free quart of dairy milk per day. Plotzke required donors to drink at least half of the milk before leaving the station to ensure that the milk was not distributed to others. The program also subjected donors to rigorous medical and dental health monitoring.

Plotzke implemented an unvarying procedure for donors: Each mother lined up at a sink to scrub her fingernails, hands, arms, and breasts. The donors then gowned, masked, and covered their hair. After placing disinfected towels under their breasts, the women hand-expressed the milk into sterile cups, usually for about an hour. So indoctrinated were the donors in this ritual that they often found fault with the habits of visiting nurses.

Lifesaving Milk
After the donors were finished, nurses measured each donor's milk, placed it in bottles, and put the bottles on ice. Later, the gowned and masked nurses pasteurized the donors' milk. Orders were filled as they arrived, but hospitals and families needing the milk had to transport it themselves.

At the program's height, 45 donors came to the station each day, all of them usually within six to nine months of giving birth to their own children. In 1943, the station collected 108,000 ounces (844 gallons), distributed to more than 1,100 infants.

Babies at home were carefully monitored for weight and care. In many instances, the supervising medical personnel credit saving an infant's life to the donated breast milk.

The station was a model throughout its existence, with nurses coming from around the country to learn how to run a milk station. The Board of Health later promoted Plotzke to the superintendent of nurses, responsible for supervising 'well-baby' clinics throughout Chicago and the Mothers' Breast Milk Station. 

By the 1960s, the breast milk stations had disappeared when commercial formulas become the standard for infant nutrition.

By Elizabeth Hanink, RN, BSN, PHN 

Edited by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.