History & Mission
The Kalamazoo Academy of Medicine Alliance is one of the oldest organizations of it's kind in the United States. Originally known as The Woman’s Auxiliary to the Kalamazoo Academy of Medicine, the group was organized in 1927, five years after the organization of the National Auxiliary.
Caroline Bartlett Crane is credited with assembling the group. Before coming to Kalamazoo in 1889, she was a river boat pilot, journalist, newspaper editor and Unitarian minister with a national reputation working for women's rights, poverty relief, and world peace. During this time she also studied at the University of Chicago where the new discipline of sociology was being created. On New Year's Eve 1897, she married Dr. Augustus Warren Crane, a pioneer radiologist. (Dr. Crane practiced radiology in Kalamazoo in March 1897, 16 months after the publication of the first radiograph.) Bartlett Crane combined the methods of sociology, her connections with women's groups and the broader medical community to impact community health in Kalamazoo and beyond. Her method was always the same: she would be invited into a community, get the medical society to support her work, get the women's groups (through the doctors’ wives) to collect information on water quality, poor workhouses, sanitation, food quality, general health, and then report on steps the community could take to improve conditions. She testified before Congress during the meat packing investigations. The New York Times called her “the Nation's Housekeeper.” As Bartlett Crane connected with wives of physicians across the country it was natural that she helped form the Women's Auxiliary to the AMA, and then the state organization.
For many years the strategy of the AMAA and MSMSA—and therefore KAMA—was to work on a health issue until it was recognized by the public and the legislature, and then move to the next issue. KAMA worked to educate and advocate for childhood immunizations, seat belts, motorcycle helmets, mammogram screening, child car seats, and smoking laws. KAMA provided car seats for infants leaving the hospital before most people knew that kids should be in car seats, and before it was the law.
In 1977, the name was changed to “Kalamazoo Academy of Medicine Auxiliary.” The name was again changed in 1993 to “Kalamazoo Academy of Medicine Alliance” and again in 2019 to “Kalamazoo Area Medical Alliance” which reflects similar changes at the state and national levels of the organization.
Today, KAMA’s focus is on education, service and legislation. And as always, to support one another!
