The opening of the University of Iowa General Hospital in 1928 was marked by three days of festivities. Guests from thirty-seven medical colleges and institutes toured, dined, and watched as Big Ten football leader Iowa was upset by second-ranked Wisconsin.

24. General Hospital, c. 1930, courtesy of the University of Iowa Archives

The General Hospital cost $4.5 million- half was paid by the Rockefeller Foundation- and its construction took over a year and a half. The seven-story building had 750 beds, a 300-seat surgical amphitheatre, and a 143-foot Gothic tower made of Indiana limestone. Thirteen hundred and fifty feet of tunnels connected the building with the adjacent Medical Laboratories and the Psychopathic and Childrens' Hospitals, making it the center of the 80-acre medical complex.

Henry Houghton, Dean of the Medical College, and his administration took pains to add patient-friendly touches to the building. A new patient arriving in the lobby would find cushioned chairs, lamps and mohair hangings under a beamed oak ceiling. The 72 private rooms (most patients were treated in the 16- to 20-bed public wards) were decorated "in faun, green and blue, the furniture of the rooms harmonizing with the tinted walls." Each floor had a pantry equipped with coffee urns and electric toasters. The kitchen even had an electric mixer "used for mashing potatoes so that they are light and fluffy."

Behind these niceties was a huge and carefully orchestrated system. The nutrition department fed an estimated 4,000 people every day, churning out 240 loaves of bread and 1,000 salads, along with special meals such as high-liver diets for anemics. One hundred housekeepers scrubbed the 2,000 windows and kept roughly 8,000 sheets and towels in constant circulation. Garbage was weighed daily to measure and control waste, and an electric control system kept all 25 clocks synchronized.

25. Diet kitchen, courtesy of the Heritage Room Collection, University of Iowa College of Nursing