Babies Hospital was founded in 1887 by five women “to provide medical and surgical aid and nursing for sick babies.” Within twenty years it had established an outpatient department, a training school for nurses, and a summer hospital on the New Jersey shore. In 1900, it became a teaching affiliate of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and in 1929 it affiliated with Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and moved to 168th Street in Manhattan. L. Emmett Holt, Herbert Wilcox, Sr. and Rustin McIntosh were among the medical directors of the hospital in the 20th century.

The formation of an Alumni Association for the Babies Hospital was discussed and some preliminary steps were taken in 1927, but the organization was not formally founded until 1937. The mission of the organization, as stated by Babies Hospital Director Herbert B. Wilcox in the 1927 Annual Report, is to “ . . . keep alive the interest of our graduates and attract new men to us.” The Alumni Association supports that mission by sponsoring yearly meetings of the alumni featuring scholarly lectures on a variety of medical and scientific topics, and also working to preserve the history of the hospital by soliciting donations of archival materials from graduates.