Dr. James Marion Sims, with Notes on New York's Sculpture of Sims

By Dianne L. Durante

A look at the controversial career of Dr. J. Marion Sims, "the Father of Gynecology," and the sculpture of him at Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street, New York City. Parts of this work appear as Essay 47 in Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide (New York University Press, 2007). I elaborated on it and first published this ebook when the p

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dianne L. Durante
• Release date: Aug 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088278390

Dianne L. Durante

At age five, I won my first writing award: a three-foot-long fire truck with an ear-splitting siren. I've been addicted to writing ever since. Today I'm an independent researcher, freelance writer, and lecturer. The challenge of figuring out how ideas and facts fit together, and then sharing what I know with others, clearly and concisely - that's what makes me leap out of bed in the morning. Janson's *History of Art*, lent to me by a high-school art teacher, was my first clue that art was more than the rock-star posters and garden gnomes that I saw in Catawissa, Pennsylvania, and that history wasn't just a series of names, dates, and statistics. Soon afterwards I read Ayn Rand's fiction and nonfiction works, and discovered that art and history - as well as politics, ethics, science, and all fields of human knowledge - are integrated by philosophy. My approach to studying art is based on Rand's *The Romantic Manifesto*. (See my review of it on Amazon.) As an art historian I'm a passionate amateur, and I write for other passionate amateurs. I love looking at art, and thinking about art, and helping other people have a blast looking at it, too. *Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide* (New York University Press, 2007), which includes 54 sculptures, was described by Sam Roberts in the *New York Times* as "a perfect walking-tour accompaniment to help New Yorkers and visitors find, identify and better appreciate statues famous and obscure" (1/28/2007). Every week I issue four art-related recommendations to my supporters, which have been collected in *Starry Solitudes* (poetry) and *Sunny Sundays* (painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, and more). For more of my works, see https://diannedurantewriter.com/books-essays .

Book preview

Legal Niceties

Copyright

Text copyright © 2014 Dianne L. Durante. All rights reserved. Contact me at [e-mail] or via www.DianneDuranteWriter.com .

The sculpture of Dr. J. Marion Sims by Ferdinand Miller, II was most recently on Fifth Avenue at 103rd St., New York. The photos of it are mine. Other photo credits are noted in the captions.

[e-mail]

License

This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. It may not be re-sold or given away to others. You may share it in accordance with the terms of the Kindle Book Lending Program. Otherwise, please purchase an additional copy for each person you would like to share it with. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Description

Alook at the controversial career of Dr. J. Marion Sims, the Father of Gynecology, and the sculpture of him at Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street, New York City. Parts of this work appear as Essay 47 in Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide (New York University Press, 2007). I elaborated on it and first published this ebook when the push began to have Sims’s sculpture removed from Central Park, which it was in 2018.

Table of Contents

Legal Niceties

Copyright

License

Description

Table of Contents

Sims in the South

The Controversy

The Woman’s Hospital and Sims’s International Reputation

Cancer Treatment

Sims, in Sum

New York’s Sculpture of Sims

Politics and Portrait Sculptures

Sims in the South

Dr. James Marion Sims is widely recognized as the Father of Gynecology. Yet some of his work is so controversial that a Manhattan City Council member and several community groups lobbied to haul Sims off his pedestal –