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Through most of this period, the department consisted of Winslow, an assistant, Ira Hiscock, and support staff, but Winslow recruited people from other departments to offer courses. The department offered a Certificate of Public Health after a one-year course and a Doctorate of Public Health for more advanced training. Community service was part of the mission of the Department. Winslow led the campaign to transform the State Board of Health into a State Department of Health.

This article by Winslow, appearing in the Yale Alumni Weekly in 1923, features an illustration of Nathan Smith Hall, home of the Department from 1919 to 1928. Formerly the private Elm City Hospital, Nathan Smith Hall, located at 32 Park Street, was later used as a dormitory for the Yale School of Nursing.

Ira Vaughan Hiscock's appointment as Chairman and Anna M.R. Lauder Professor of Public Health in 1945 was a victory for Winslow. Francis Blake, John Paul, and others had hoped to appoint someone more oriented to epidemiology and laboratory work. But a committee selected by Yale President Charles Seymour favored Winslow's disciple, Hiscock, a member of the faculty since 1920. Hiscock graduated from Wesleyan University, where he came under the influence of bacteriologist Herbert W. Chonn, and received a Certificate of Public Health from Yale in 1921. Like Winslow, Hiscock became a national and international authority on public health administration and directed numerous health surveys of communities in Connecticut and around the country. He was commissioner of the New Haven Board of Health from 1928 to 1958.

In 1928, Francis Blake invited Paul to become an assistant professor of medicine at Yale. He was appointed in 1940 to head of the new Section of Preventive Medicine, later the Section of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine. Paul made significant contributions to the study of rheumatic fever, infectious mononucleosis, and hepatitis, but he is especially noted for his work on poliomyelitis. He established the Yale Poliomyelitis Study Unit in 1931 with James Trask. Paul and his colleagues made many fundamental contributions to the understanding of poliomyelitis on which the subsequent immunization programs were based. He was named to the Polio Hall of Fame in 1958.

Ira Hiscock - first row, fifth from the left. To his left is C-E.A. Winslow. John Paul, who, although a member of the Department of Medicine, also taught epidemiology to graduate students in public health, is to the far left. It may be noted that the Department of Public Health admitted African-American students at a time when neither the School of Medicine nor the School of Nursing did.

The Department of Public Health functioned as a department of the Medical School and also as a fully accredited school of public health when accreditation was introduced in 1947. Instruction covered public health administration, industrial medicine, hospital administration, maternal and child health, mental hygiene, biostatistics, epidemiology, public health nursing, health education, and environmental health.

Henry Gamble was born of slave parents in Virginia in 1862. As a youth, he was employed as a houseboy by a professor of medicine at the University of Virginia during which time he began educating himself. In the fall of 1882, he entered Lincoln University and graduated with honors. He was the fourth African-American to matriculate in medicine at Yale. He worked nights as a janitor in order to pay his tuition, room and board. Hegraduated in 1891 with honors. His thesis was entitled “The Control of Epidemics.”  Dr. Gamble quickly gained a reputation for hisexceptional ability as a surgeon and published scientific articles on topics such as thoracic aneurysms and caesarean section.

Since African-Americans were not allowed in the state medical society, Dr. Gamble helped organize the West Virginia State Medical Association, an African-American organization. He joined the National Medical Association where he served as Chairman of the Executive Board, and helped write its constitution. In 1912, Dr. Gamble was elected president of the National Medical Association.

William Penn, born in Virginia in 1871, was a descendent of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania and brother to Professor I. Garland Penn, a founder of the National MedicalAssociation.

Upon graduation from Yale, Penn began a distinguished medical career. Two years after graduation, he married Lulu Tompkins Wright and moved to Atlanta, GA. He later became vice-president of theGeorgia State National Medical Association. Around 1926 Dr. Penn moved to Tuskegee, AL, to become chief of surgery of the Veterans Administration Hospital. He died on May 31, 1934, of chronic myocarditis.

Dr. Ruth J. Temple was a  community health crusader and the first African-American female graduate of Loma Linda University. Her many accomplishments and medical interests include the foundation of a health study club to educate the community on nutrition, sex education, immunization and substance abuse. Pushing the barriers placed on African-American women of the time, Dr. Temple committed herself to community health issues in the city of Los Angeles. Dr. Temple graduated from the College of Medical Evangelists (Loma Linda University) with her MD in 1918.  When she began her career, there was not a single medical clinic in East Los Angeles. She and her husband, Otis Lawrence Banks, purchased a six room house on Central Avenue and turned it into a free health clinic, later naming it the Temple Health Institute. Overcoming the prejudices of the time, Dr. Temple was on the faculty of White Memorial Hospital teaching white medical students. In 1941, the Los Angeles City Health department gave Temple a scholarship to attend Yale University for a Master’s in public health. She went on to pioneer the city's public health program and helped to establish the Southeast District Health Center. She was appointed the first health officer of Los Angeles City in 1942 and was recognized as an authority in the field of obstetrics.

In 1983, the East Los Angeles Health Center was renamed the Dr. Ruth Temple Health Center. Dr. Temple died in 1984 at the age of 91.

Claudewell Thomas is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine at UCLA and is acknowledged by that Department to be the first African-American emeritus Professor of Psychiatry appointed at UCLA (1993). He is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology (and a past examiner for the Board) and Fellow of the A.K. Rice Institute. He was Chairman and Professor of Psychiatry at Drew Medical School in Los Angeles, Vice Chairman of Psychiatry at UCLA, Professor and Chair of Psychiatry at UMDN-New Jersey Medical School, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Public Health and Sociology at Yale, and an Adjunct Professor at The Union Institute and University of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Dr. Thomas served as Director of the Division of Mental Health Service Programs at the National Institute of Mental Health, and as a reserve medical officer of the 514th Tactical Wing, Mitchell Field, Mineola, New York. He was also an active duty base psychiatrist at the 6022nd USAF Hospital PACAF in Irumgawa, Japan. Somewhat unusually he was the Medical Director at Tokanui  Psychiatric Hospital in Hamilton, New Zealand in 1996. He was a member of the Los Angeles Superior Court Panel of Psychiatrists and Psychologists and a psychiatric consultant for Los Angeles County. He is the author and editor of three books and over fifty academic journal articles. His last book, co-authored with Dr. Brenda Fellows and published in 2010 is titled Your Personal Power Up and has been particularly well received by women and minorities. He is now actively engaged in helping Dr. Jeffrey Thomas construct a San Francisco based Stroke Shield Foundation and continues to work with the San Francisco based Bay Area Foundation for Human Resources.

Thomas W. Chapman, MPH '71, is President and CEO of The HSC Foundation - a nonprofit integrated health care organization. He previously served as Senior Vice President for Network Development  and CEO of the George Washington University Hospital, President of the Greater Southeast Healthcare System, Senior Consultant in Health Care Planning and Management, Arthur D. Little, Inc., Assistant Executive Director, Group Health Association and President, Provident Hospital, Inc.

He serves on a variety of corporate boards, including Kaiser Permanente; Consumer Health Foundation and the National Initiative for Children’s Healthcare Quality. Dr. Chapman also serves as a consultant to varied organizations, such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Pan American Health Organization. He is a professor/lecturer at such universities as George Washington, Harvard, Howard, Georgetown, and Johns Hopkins. Dr. Chapman earned his Doctor of Education from the George Washington University and his Master of Public Health from Yale University, School of  Public Health in 1971.

Major General Trowell-Harris, MPH '73, Ph.D., is the highest ranking African American woman in the National Guard. Dr. Trowell-Harris was the first woman in the 354 year history of the National Guard to command a medical clinic; the first African American woman in its history to become a general officer; the first person to have both a Tuskegee Airmen Chapter and Mentoring Award named in her honor. Among her numerous civilian and military honors is the Legion of Merit Award, one of the nation’s top military awards. She was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by the Medical University of South Carolina and their highest award, the Order of the Palmetto.

Dr. Trowell-Harris knew what she wanted to do from a very young age. While working on her parent’s farm with her 10 brothers and sisters in Ohio, she watched planes as they passed overhead and dreamed that someday she would fly for a living. Her mother, however, wanted her to be a nurse. She earned a nursing diploma from the Columbia Hospital School of Nursing. Her dream of flying would not die and in 1963, she was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the Air National Guard. She advanced quickly in the ranks, earning promotion to flight nurse instructor in 1966 and then to chief nurse. The Air National Guard allowed for a perfect combination of her love for airplanes and her commitment to nursing. In 1986, she was appointed commander of the 105th USAF Clinic in NY, making her the first Air National Guard nurse to command a medical clinic. She was appointed director of the Center for Women Veterans in October 2001.

After receiving his MPH in 1992, Mr. Nelson was asked to take over the operational reins of Hudson Health Plan – a Medicaid Managed Care company in New York. As Executive VP & COO, he has played an invaluable role in enabling the plan to grow from fewer than 1,000 members when he started, to 75,000 members today. 

While a student at YSPH he organized the African-American Alumni Network at Yale, which hosted numerous networking receptions for students of color. Nelson remains active in the YSPH community. Nelson serves on the YSPH Diversity Committee, the YSPH Alumni Advisory Board, and the board of directors for the Association of Yale Alumni in Public Health (AYAPH).

In 2000, he was named chair of the Minority Affairs Committee of AYAPH. Recognizing the evolving cultural climate of the country, he renamed the group the “Emerging Majority Affairs Committee.”  From its inception, the mission EMAC has been to ensure that the interests of the emerging majority are considered in all matters concerning YSPH. In June 2007, Nelson was elected Vice President of the AYAPH Board, and in July 2007, he was elected to the Board of Governors of the Association of Yale Alumni.

A 44-year-old mother of five and grandmother who once thought admissions officers would simply laugh at her application to medical school, was the first grandmother ever to graduate from the Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Morris first thought about becoming a doctor when she saw doctors taking care of her ill grandmother. However, her plans for a medical career were put on hold when she became pregnant at 16. She was meant to be the first one in her family to go to college and felt as though she had let her family down. Dr. Morris managed to stay in high school and earn her diploma. By age 29, she had five children. She still wanted to go to college, but her husband at the time did not support that dream. She studied cosmetology instead, and ran a beauty shop out of their home. Each fall, she proposed starting college, and each fall she felt pressured to wait—until the children were older, until finances were less strained. After about nine years, Dr. Morris quietly enrolled at a community college. While working full time as a secretary, Dr. Morris would do homework alongside her children, surviving on four hours of sleep. She completed her Associate’s degree summa cum laude in 1996 and enrolled at nearby York College to work toward her Bachelor’s degree in nursing.

Finding jobs first at a state psychiatric hospital and then at a prison with 3,000 male inmates, Morris  enjoyed nursing, but craved more responsibility. She began taking the prerequisites for medical school. Her honors at Yale include: Medical School Banner Bearer for commencement exercises, the Community Service Award and the Cortlandt Van Rensselaer Creed Award for outstanding academic achievement, exemplary leadership and a significant commitment to the community at large.