ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the politics, economics, and growing wealth of the hospital business in Pennsylvania in light of the important and unusual role played by the state. The role of the state in Pennsylvania between 1870 and 1910 reflects a general ambivalence as to the proper role of government in providing social services on a massive scale. In 1910 an estimated one-third of the total income of religious and voluntary hospitals in Pennsylvania came from government, chiefly from the state—more than their income from endowments and contributions, and only a little less than their income from paying patients. For the hospitals such "charity" was sweet indeed. Participating in a large-scale system of state grants-in-aid, hospital representatives became shrewd observers of the scene in Harrisburg and sensitive political manipulators. The momentum of hospital appropriations led to no immediate decline in state aid to hospitals, but rather to the expectation of no (or minimal) increases.
