Ailie May Spencer Gale (1878–1958) was an American physician. She served as a medical missionary in China under commission from the Methodist Episcopal Board of Missions from 1908 to 1950 alongside her husband Rev. Francis Gale, a religious missionary. Committed to a lifetime of unpaid social activism, Gale's work emphasized an approach to patient care that focused on preventative care and public health, humane treatment, and consideration for the whole patient, entailing concern for physical, spiritual, and intellectual needs. She also had evangelical motives and sought to promote the status of Chinese women.
Gale's years of service in China coincided with major political developments of the time, including the Chinese Civil War, Second Sino-Japanese War, Sino-American alliance during World War II, and implementation of a Communist government. The political and cultural climates created by these events had a great impact on Gale's work both in determining the needs she was to respond to and in influencing interactions between the Gales and the Chinese populations they served.
Gale kept active correspondence with her supporters back in the American home field. As a female surgeon in the twentieth century who wrote about her medical successes and spoke at public events, Gale broke into fields dominated by men in the twentieth century—medicine and public speaking—and gave credibility to women's capability for professionalism and leadership. Her readers were encouraged to consider women as active players in the international realm rather than solely restricted to the domestic sphere. At the same time, historians have noted Gale's role in uplifting upper-middle class white Protestant women at the expense of Chinese women, whose religious practices (or lack thereof) and non-Western medicine she considered inferior.
Gale returned to New York in 1950 and died in 1958 at the age of 79.
Background
Early life Ailie Gale was born in 1878 in Bozeman, Montana to Moses Harrison Spencer, a Methodist circuit rider and dentist, and Elizabeth Spencer. She had one brother, John Spencer. Her upbringing was shaped by her father's fundamentalist beliefs, which allowed for no dissent and no fun. Rather, education and religious piety were highly emphasized.
Education Gale began attending Colorado College at age 20 while working as a housekeeper and cook in order to financially support herself. Despite the death of her parents and increasing financial hardship after graduation, Gale continued her education at Cooper Medical College in San Francisco in 1902. There, she became involved with the Epworth League and Student Volunteer Movement, serving on missionary trips and eventually becoming president of the Student Volunteer chapter of the University of California at Berkeley. In 1905, she received her medical degree with specialization in surgery.
While on furlough from her missionary work in Nanchang in 1922, Gale took postgraduate medical courses at Columbia Medical College in preparation for her work in Tunxi (Tunki), Anhui.
Personal life Ailie Spencer married Francis Gale, then a theology student, in 1905, thereby changing her name to Ailie Gale. Although her husband received a salary that she did not, Francis Gale himself recognized and was often involved in Ailie's work. He was one of her most vocal supporters.
Together, they raised four children, three sons and an adopted Chinese daughter, Mary Gao Chen. Gale found Mary abandoned at the gate of the Nanchang Hospital as a one-month-old. While Mary was raised as Christian, Mary's upbringing also emphasized her Chinese identity as she was taught the Chinese language and wore traditional clothes. Gale impressed upon her from childhood the importance of her future role in serving the Chinese people and the precedence public service work took over marriage. Mary grew up to become a nurse working in public health, expressing interest in Chinese politics as well as showing talent as a leader and administrator.
Medical missionary work in China
Call to mission work Although Gale received her medical degree, she did not take state board examinations, determined to utilize her medical skills in the mission rather than in America. Additionally, opportunities for medical work were scant for women in America, who faced discrimination in the male-dominated field; Gale was one of only four women in her graduating class from Cooper Medical College. China, on the other hand, had many opportunities for women physicians on account of the Manchu abdication of 1911 and new Republican government's recognition of Western medicine after the North Manchurian Plague of 1910 and 1911, and a dire dearth of physicians that left Chinese communities underserved. Nevertheless, there still existed some conflict over the imposition of Western medicine over traditional Chinese healing practices.
Gale's mission work was also driven by a desire to spread Christianity, and especially to empower women through Christianity, rather than professional gain. She worked in Nanchang, Tunxi, the Shanghai American School, Nanjing, and Zizhou as an administrator and physician/surgeon in hospitals, dispensaries, and schools.
Nanchang, Jiangxi: 1908–21 Gale's arrival in Nanchang in 1908 with her husband and sons Otis Spencer and Lester Sinclair coincided with the death of the Empress Dowager Cixi, which signaled a break from traditional Chinese society and the beginning of the acceptance of Western medicine by 1911. Here, Gale held three positions at Methodist institutions. She worked as chief administer at the Nanchang General Hospital until 1922, the only physician available to serve thirty hospital beds and two outside dispensaries until 1920, the year she finally had a Chinese physician join as her assistant.Lacy, Walter N. 1947. A hundred years of China Methodism. Nashville, TN: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press.Isham, Mrs. George (Mary). 1913. "Our organization and Task." In Our work for the world, compiled by Mrs. William McDowell. Boston: Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, Methodist Episcopal Church.China Christian Advocate (CCA). 1912-35. Official organ in China of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Shanghai: Methodist Publishing House. She was also the school physician and industrial class teacher for the Stephen L. Baldwin Memorial Girls' School starting in 1910 and provided medical services for the Women's Foreign Missionary Society's Women and Children's Hospital. In addition to overseeing and performing most of the medical work and surgical operations in each location, Gale also made house calls. All social classes were accounted for: treatment for the poor was free, financed by fees to upper-class patients.
She also served as a role model for female independence "the rapidly growing numbers of modernized Chinese women" as Chinese women "began their fight for a public role in the new democracy" and built a close relationship with the women she served. She further encouraged interaction through invitations to eat dinner with "interesting Chinese guests" in published letters in Woman's Missionary Friend.
Tunxi, Anhui: 1923–27 After returning home to complete postgraduate medical courses at Columbia Medical College, the Gale family again arrived in China in the Tunxi area in 1923 with three male nurses trained by Gale in Nanchang. The Board had commissioned Rev. Gale to continue evangelical work and Dr. Gale to take over medical work.
Gale's time in Tunxi was characterized by two major complications: lack of funding and rising anti-foreign sentiment in China. By the 1920s, post-WWI disillusionment, as well as financially stressed Protestant churches, had contributed to the loss of interest in missionary work. As a result, funding from Methodist Episcopal Church Board became scarce, even threatening to force the Gales to leave their missionary post in Tunxi altogether. However, Gale took advantage of the increasingly important relationship she had with supporters in the home field and was able to continue medical work, including building the Tunxi General Hospital, relying solely upon monetary donations and gifts. Her letters became even more emphatic in relating how vital these gifts were as well as the gratitude of Chinese patients. She also raised money from local Chinese contributions and medical fees to wealthier patients.
The rise of anti-imperialist and anti-Christian sentiment and protests as a result of the growing Chinese Nationalist Movement antagonized the relationship between missionaries, seen by many as representatives of Western domination, and the local Chinese population. However, Gale was able to evade attack because of her connections with a local government school, hiring graduates as nurses and befriending Buddhist teachers and students there. This relationship extended military protection over the Tunxi Hospital, where Gale treated both Southern and Northern soldiers. Gale had the full support of Tunxi officials, receiving a Merit Board from military officials, soldiers, and the police commissioner as they asked the Gales to remain in Tunxi.Ibid., Gale to Burtis, 13 February 1927, 4-5 to 12.
Gale ran a self-directed and self-administered public health campaign starting in 1925 with malaria as its main target issue. Putting a spin on the nationalist "kill the Japs" pamphlets widely distributed by students at the time, Gale and her nurses handed out "kill the fly" pamphlets.Frank C. Gale Collection. Ailie Gale correspondence, 1904-50. The campaign culminated in a week of public health in May 1926 with health parades of school children, nurses, and religious workers carrying banners and Chinese national flags, sanitation lectures held by hospital representatives, and musical entertainment. It was widely popular among Tunxi residents, and attendants included the police force and members of the Chamber of Commerce. The campaign was seen as a great success, both educating and encouraging enthusiasm among the Tunxi population. Afterwards, wire screen covers were manufactured by the Tunxi population and widely used in candy and fruit shops as protection against mosquitoes.
The Shanghai American School: 1927–33 In April 1927, the American Consulate ordered an evacuation from Tunxi in response to escalating anti-foreign sentiment and the potential for violent attacks. The Gales, along with over 75,000 other foreigners, moved to Shanghai where Ailie Gale became a physician and preceptress at the Shanghai American School.
The missionary station in Tunxi was eventually closed by the Board in December 1931 due to lack of funding, exacerbated by the worldwide depression.
Nanjing: 1933–39 During her time in Nanjing, Methodist missionary objectives shifted to emphasize the economic and social needs of rural China rather than evangelical efforts in response to the deteriorating economy. Gale continued her work in a holistic approach to preventative health at two clinics, established by herself, and Ginling College, established by women's Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian societies to "offer special courses in premedical sciences, in education," and "in religion, fitting women students for service in the three fields of ministry to the needs of body, mind and spirit".Boyd, Nancy. 1986. Emissaries: The overseas work of the American YWCA 1895-1970. New York: The Women's Press. Gale was satisfied with her placement in the College as it, with its faculty and Nationalist government backing, promoted education in order to empower a more active public role for women. Here, she held a public health clinic, once performing three hundred physical exams within one week. In addition to her role as a physician, Gale was also an educator and saw herself as a role model who collaborated with her students on public health projects and invited them to her home for meals.