{"nid":471,"uuid":"daaff160-18a2-4bfa-b45a-0e0d7c6599db","vid":482,"langcode":"en","type":"node:article","uid":69,"title":"Anne Walter Fearn: Physician, Entrepreneur, and Pioneer of Shanghai\u2019s American Community","created":1427250800,"changed":1490004850,"promote":0,"sticky":0,"revision_default":1,"path":"\/article\/anne-walter-fearn-physician-entrepreneur-and-pioneer-shanghais-american-community","metatag":[{"tag":"meta","attributes":{"name":"title","content":"Anne Walter Fearn: Physician, Entrepreneur, and Pioneer of Shanghai\u2019s American Community | Amcham"}},{"tag":"meta","attributes":{"name":"description","content":"Anne Walter Fearn was a well-known physician, hostess, and activist \u2013 and a beloved figure in Shanghai \u2013 for 30 years at the start of the 20th century. She was also an entrepreneur, having founded the Fearn Sanatorium, a private hospital, in 1916 (shortly after AmCham Shanghai got its start). As a physician, Fearn delivered over 6,000 babies during her time in China and pioneered a coeducational medical school for Chinese students. She was also a socially skilled southern belle, often..."}},{"tag":"link","attributes":{"rel":"image_src","href":"http:\/\/www.amcham-shanghai.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/max_650x650\/public\/Anne-Fearn-portrait.jpg?itok=_rKFD5lP"}},{"tag":"meta","attributes":{"property":"og:image","content":"http:\/\/www.amcham-shanghai.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/max_650x650\/public\/Anne-Fearn-portrait.jpg?itok=_rKFD5lP"}}],"body":"\u003Cimg class=\u0022alignright size-medium wp-image-6794\u0022 src=\u0022\/sites\/default\/files\/wp-content\/uploads\/Anne-Fearn-portrait-267x400.jpg\u0022 alt=\u0022Anne Walter Fearn\u0022 width=\u0022267\u0022 height=\u0022400\u0022 loading=\u0022lazy\u0022\u003EAnne Walter Fearn was a well-known physician, hostess, and activist \u2013 and a beloved figure in Shanghai \u2013 for 30 years at the start of the 20\u003Csup\u003Eth\u003C\/sup\u003E century. She was also an entrepreneur, having founded the Fearn Sanatorium, a private hospital, in 1916 (shortly after AmCham Shanghai got its start). As a physician, Fearn delivered over 6,000 babies during her time in China and pioneered a coeducational medical school for Chinese students. She was also a socially skilled southern belle, often hosting dinner parties and concerts for foreign visitors to China. Fearn loved Shanghai and was truly a founding member of the American community here, serving both as president of the American Women\u2019s Club and helping to establish the Shanghai American School in 1912.\n\nFearn was born Anne Walter in Holly Springs, Mississippi in 1865. She had nine siblings but lost her father, a prominent lawyer, and three older brothers during an epidemic of yellow fever in 1878. In the summer of 1889, Fearn met several women doctors, sparking her own interest in medical study. In those days, career women \u2013 and women physicians in particular \u2013 were rare in the American South. Her mother was strongly against the idea of Fearn pursuing a career, and even threatened to disown her. Fearn\u2019s persistence and passion, however, eventually won over her mother.\n\nAfter graduating from the Women\u2019s Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1893, Fearn traveled to Suzhou, China as a temporary substitute for a medical school classmate who was a medical missionary. Although never a church member herself, Dr. Fearn agreed to take on the position as an employee of the Women\u2019s Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church.\n\n\u003Cimg class=\u0022alignleft size-medium wp-image-6795\u0022 src=\u0022\/sites\/default\/files\/wp-content\/uploads\/Anne-Fearn-400x279.jpg\u0022 alt=\u0022Anne Fearn\u0022 width=\u0022400\u0022 height=\u0022279\u0022 loading=\u0022lazy\u0022\u003EAs with so many expats, the temporary position that brought Fearn to China turned into fourteen years of work in Suzhou. In her 1939 memoir, \u003Cem\u003EMy Days of Strength\u003C\/em\u003E, she wrote \u201cI started in a whirlwind of energy to open a hospital, establish some sort of system, clean up the building, the compound, the servants, the patients and the houses of the patients. I even had a few nebulous notions about cleaning up the city. My endeavors along these lines created considerable amusement among the Chinese, who immediately gave me the nickname Tai Foong (Typhoon).\u201d During this period, Fearn performed operations, delivered babies, opened a children\u2019s ward at the mission hospital, and in 1895 started a pioneering coeducational medical school for Chinese students.\n\nIn 1896, Anne Walter married John Burrus Fearn, a fellow medical missionary from Mississippi who was in charge of the men\u2019s hospital in Suzhou. When John Fearn resigned his post in 1907, the couple returned to the United States. They loved China too much to stay away, though, and returned just a year later in 1908, this time settling in Shanghai to practice medicine.\n\u003Cimg class=\u0022alignright size-full wp-image-6796\u0022 src=\u0022\/sites\/default\/files\/wp-content\/uploads\/My-days-of-strength.png\u0022 alt=\u0022my days of strengh\u0022 width=\u0022293\u0022 height=\u0022217\u0022 loading=\u0022lazy\u0022\u003E\u0026nbsp;Fearn established her own hospital for private patients, the Fearn Sanatorium, which she operated from 1916 until the death of her husband \u2013 himself director of the Shanghai General Hospital -- in 1926. She remained in Shanghai, where she was active in fundraising for the Shanghai American School and worked closely with finance minister H. H. Kung in the National Child Welfare Association of China.\n\nAfter her retirement in 1938, Fearn returned to Berkeley, California to write her autobiography, \u003Cem\u003EMy Days of Strength\u003C\/em\u003E. Fearn died on April 28, 1939, only two weeks after the book was published. Her ashes were sent to Shanghai for interment in Bubbling Well Road Cemetery, which is now Jingan Park.","field_banner":{"alt":"Anne Walter Fearn: Physician, Entrepreneur, and Pioneer of Shanghai\u2019s American Community","title":"Anne Walter Fearn: Physician, Entrepreneur, and Pioneer of Shanghai\u2019s American Community","src":"http:\/\/www.amcham-shanghai.org\/sites\/default\/files\/Anne-Fearn-portrait.jpg"},"field_featured":0,"field_slider_advertisement":0,"field_stick_home_slider":0,"field_thumbnail":{"alt":"Anne Walter Fearn: Physician, Entrepreneur, and Pioneer of Shanghai\u2019s American Community","title":"Anne Walter Fearn: Physician, Entrepreneur, and Pioneer of Shanghai\u2019s American Community","src":"http:\/\/www.amcham-shanghai.org\/sites\/default\/files\/Anne-Fearn-portrait.jpg"},"_links":{"self":{"href":"http:\/\/www.amcham-shanghai.org\/api\/article\/anne-walter-fearn-physician-entrepreneur-and-pioneer-shanghais-american-community"}},"field_member_only":0,"field_template_key":"node.article","author":{"id":69,"type":"user","display_name":"amcham"},"breadcrumb":[{"text":"Home","uri":"\/"},{"text":"Publications","uri":"\/content"},{"text":"Anne Walter Fearn: Physician, Entrepreneur, and Pioneer of Shanghai\u2019s American Community","uri":"\/article\/anne-walter-fearn-physician-entrepreneur-and-pioneer-shanghais-american-community"}],"category":""}