Kelly, Howard Atwood (1858-1943)

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Howard A. Kelley to Jane Addams, May 12, 1912

Howard A. Kelly to Jane Addams, May 18, 1912

A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil, Chapter III: Lack of Moral Education and Its Dangers, January 1912

Prince A. Morrow to Jane Addams, February 29, 1912

Frank A. Manny to Jane Addams, July 16, 1912

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Birth Date

1858-02-20

Death Date

1943-01-12

Birthplace

Camden, NJ

Biographical Text

Howard Atwood Kelly attended the Faires Classical Institute, and in 1873 he began studying at the University of Pennsylvania, later studying at the Universtity's medical school. Kelly completed his residency at the Episcopal Hospital at Kensington, Pennsylvania, and then opened his own gynecology practice in his home. With the help of female philanthropists, Kelly was eventually able to open up a formal clinic with an operating room that later became the Kensington Hospital for Women, where Kelly created the "Kelly stitch", a procedure to treat stress incontinence, and performed the first successful C-section in Philadelphia. In 1899 he was appointed chair of gynecological surgery of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and he became part of Hopkins' "Big Four." Kelly then founded the Howard A. Kelly Hospital. He was known for establishing gynecology as its own field of study, writing the textbook Operative Gynecology.

Kelly married Olga Elizabeth Laetitia Bredow in 1889. They had nine children together. Kelly and his wife both died in 1943.