Jane Bruce Guignard

Guignard was born in Aiken County, South Carolina, the daughter of John Gabriel Guignard and Jane Bruce Salley Guignard. She was the youngest of nine brothers and sisters. Her father was a Confederate States Army veteran of the American Civil War. She was a student at The College for Women in Columbia in Columbia, South Carolina, and trained for teaching at Peabody College in Tennessee, graduating in 1896. She moved to Philadelphia in 1900 to attend the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania after recovering from serious injuries from a horse and carriage accident that was fatal to her mother. She graduated from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1904.{{Cite news |date=1963-01-13 |title=Guignard Rites Set Monday |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-state-guignard-rites-set-monday/145679091/ |access-date=2024-04-19 |work=The State |pages=26 |via=Newspapers.com}} Writer Frances Guignard Gibbes was a cousin.Arny R. Childs, ed., [https://ia600701.us.archive.org/26/items/plantersbusiness00chil/plantersbusiness00chil.pdf Planters and Businessmen: The Guignard Family of South Carolina] (University of South Carolina 1957).

Guignard taught in Columbia City Schools for four years before moving to Philadelphia to attend medical college.{{Cite web |last=Barbee |first=Seth |last2=Amer |first2=Dalva |title=Biographical Sketch of Jane Bruce Guignard |url=https://documents.alexanderstreet.com/d/1010026783 |access-date=2024-04-20 |website=Alexander Street Documents}} She was one of the city's first women physicians, beginning her practice there in 1905,{{Cite news |date=1959-04-16 |title=Dr. Guignard Honored at Altrusa Observance |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-state-dr-guignard-honored-at-altrus/145672919/ |access-date=2024-04-19 |work=The State |via=Newspapers.com |pages=37}} specializing on obstetrics and pediatrics.{{Cite web |title=Photo Asset: Jane Bruce Guignard |url=https://www.knowitall.org/photo/jane-bruce-guignard-history-sc-slide-collection |access-date=2024-04-20 |website=History of SC Slide Collection, at Knowitall.org}}{{Cite web |date=2018-08-30 |title="G" is for Guignard, Jane Bruce (1876-1963) |url=https://www.southcarolinapublicradio.org/history/2018-08-30/g-is-for-guignard-jane-bruce-1876-1963 |access-date=2024-04-20 |website=South Carolina Public Radio |language=en}} She was also an attending physician on staff at the College for Women and Columbia College from 1905 to 1908. Delivering babies at home exposed her to the health risks faced by the city's poorer residents, and she opened a small maternity home in the 1920s. She served as the second assistant to the chief surgeon at Columbia Hospital and worked to improve services for women and children. She also created a training program for black midwives.{{Cite web |last=Roberts |first=Giselle |title=Guignard, Jane Bruce |url=https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/guignard-jane-bruce/ |access-date=2024-04-19 |website=South Carolina Encyclopedia |language=en-US}} She practiced medicine for over 55 years delivering over 1,000 babies throughout her career. She was honored by Columbia Hospital, noted for her holistic approach to care, and presented with a portrait of herself to be hung at the hospital in 1940. She was a member of the Medical Women's National Association.{{Cite news |last=Welbourne |first=Edythe |date=1934-03-14 |title=National, International Women in Medicine |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-state-national-international-women/145678744/ |access-date=2024-04-19 |work=The State |pages=21 |via=Newspapers.com}}

Guignard was president of the Columbia Equal Suffrage League.{{Cite news |date=1915-01-15 |title=Women to Use Influence |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-newberry-weekly-herald-women-to-use/145677455/ |access-date=2024-04-19 |work=The Newberry Weekly Herald |pages=4 |via=Newspapers.com}} After suffrage was won, she was co-founder of the Columbia League of Women Voters,{{Cite news |date=1922-07-09 |title=Form Charleston League |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-state-form-charleston-league/145678325/ |access-date=2024-04-19 |work=The State |pages=23 |via=Newspapers.com}} and state chair of the Social Hygiene Department of the South Carolina League of Women Voters. She wrote an open letter to a mayoral candidate about vice in Columbia in 1922.{{Cite news |date=1922-04-20 |title=Exchange Notes on City Matters; W. A. Coleman Answers Dr. Guignard's Letter; Vice Question Up |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-state-exchange-notes-on-city-matters/145673581/ |access-date=2024-04-19 |work=The State |via=Newspapers.com |pages=2}} She was active in Altrusa, and was honored by the local chapter in 1959, for her many years of service to the community.{{Cite news |date=1959-04-16 |title=Dr. Guignard Honored at Altrusa Observance |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-state-dr-guignard-honored-at-altrus/145672919/ |access-date=2024-04-19 |work=The State |via=Newspapers.com |pages=37}} She was also honored in 1954 at her 50th anniversary ceremony of graduating from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania.

Guignard gave eugenic cautions about mate selection along with other prenatal advice in a lecture at a community baby clinic in 1924.{{Cite news |date=1924-05-07 |title=Interest Shown in 'Baby Week'; Dr. Jane Bruce Guignard Makes Address |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-state-interest-shown-in-baby-week/145676864/ |access-date=2024-04-19 |work=The State |pages=6 |via=Newspapers.com}} Matilda Evans, a Black woman physician in Columbia, admired Guignard as a colleague, saying Guignard was one "whose soul is in the work of caring for and helping suffering humanity."{{Cite journal |last=Hine |first=Darlene Clark |date=2004 |title=The Corporeal and Ocular Veil: Dr. Matilda A. Evans (1872-1935) and the Complexity of Southern History |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27648310 |journal=The Journal of Southern History |volume=70 |issue=1 |pages=17 |doi=10.2307/27648310 |issn=0022-4642}}

Guignard and her sister Caroline funded a lecture series at the University of South Carolina as a memorial to their brother, Gabriel Alexander Guignard, who died in 1926.{{Cite news |date=1958-04-30 |title=Orangeburg County Native Dies in Columbia |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-times-and-democrat-orangebuerg-count/145677743/ |access-date=2024-04-19 |work=The Times and Democrat |pages=8 |via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite web |title=Guignard Brick Works |url=https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/guignard-brick-works/ |access-date=2024-04-19 |website=South Carolina Encyclopedia |language=en-US}} Late in life, she donated the Guignard family property called Still Hopes{{Cite web |last=Ligon |first=John Temple |last2= |date=2010-06-04 |title=Guignard mansion at Still Hopes turns 100 |url=https://www.thecolumbiastar.com/articles/guignard-mansion-at-still-hopes-turns-100/ |access-date=2024-04-20 |website=Columbia Star}} to the local Episcopal diocese to use as a retirement home.{{Cite news |date=1960-01-09 |title=Trinity Home for Retired to Break Ground on Sunday |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-state-trinity-home-for-retired-to-br/145678556/ |access-date=2024-04-19 |work=The State |pages=8 |via=Newspapers.com}} She attended the ground-breaking for Trinity Home, as the project was named, in 1960.{{Cite news |date=1960-01-13 |title=People and Things |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-state-people-and-things/145660956/ |access-date=2024-04-19 |work=The State |via=Newspapers.com |pages=11}}

Guignard died from leukemia in 1963, at the age of 86, in Columbia, South Carolina.{{Cite journal |last=Curry |first=Jane Guignard |date=January 1993 |title=Jane Bruce Guignard M.D. 1876-1963 |url=https://archive.org/details/journalofsouthca8911sout/page/n25/mode/2up?q=Jane+Bruce+Guignard |journal=Journal of the South Carolina Medical Association |volume=89 |pages=31-34 |via=Internet Archive}} Still Hopes Retirement Community remains in operation as of 2024, with the skilled nursing portion of the facilities named for Jane Bruce Guignard.{{Cite web |last= |first= |last2= |first2= |last3= |first3= |title=Still Hopes Episcopal Retirement Community |url=https://www.greenwayatstillhopes.org/skilled-nursing |access-date=2024-04-20 |website=Still Hopes |language=en}}

{{reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Guignard, Jane Bruce}}

Category:1876 births

Category:1963 deaths

Category:People from Columbia, South Carolina

Category:Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania alumni

Category:American physicians

Category:American philanthropists