The Vanderbilt Clinic Auxiliary was organized in 1908 to raise funds for and take charge of three departments associated with the Clinic: the Visiting Nurse Service, the Social Service Dept., and the Day Camp for tuberculosis patients.  It was an entirely female enterprise with many of the members being the wives of physicians on the Clinic staff.

Over time, the Auxiliary expanded its services to include occupational therapy; social service to patients of the dermatology/syphilology department; and a patients’ library.   They organized fundraising events and, with other charitable organizations, operated and benefited from Everybody’s Thrift Shop.

Vanderbilt Clinic was founded in 1886 with a gift from the four sons of William H. Vanderbilt to serve as an outpatient clinic for the College of Physicians and Surgeons.  It was located at the corner of Amsterdam Ave. and West 60th Street on the P&S campus. The Clinic was operated by the College faculty, a situation that did not change after the merger of P&S into Columbia University in 1891.

With the affiliation of the medical school and Presbyterian Hospital in 1911 to form what eventually became the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, Columbia decided to divest itself of its clinical units and in 1925, Vanderbilt became part of Presbyterian Hospital. The Auxiliary’s status was unaffected by this change and it continued its work with Vanderbilt patients after the Clinic moved in 1928 to the Medical Center campus in Washington Heights.

The Vanderbilt Clinic Auxiliary continued under that name until 1950 when it was reincorporated as the Women’s Auxiliary of Presbyterian Hospital.