Worcester is an industrial city of 180,000 [in] population. The number
of people living within the city has declined from 210,000 in 1950…but the area around the city has gained … by some 3.7%… Within an hour’s
driving distance (at 35 miles per hour) of our site live a total of 1,841,000
people excluding those living in Boston. . . The industry in the city is highly diversified, manufacturing mainly durable goods. Several companies have
factories which are quite large. Approximately 45% of the labor force works in manufacturing establishments…Worcester, economically, is about at the State median, with an average annual family income of $5,804 for the year 1960.
He went on to note that Worcester was, “well governed by a city-manager system and has twice
been named an All-American City” with a “very good” public school system, many colleges, and
the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology.” He wrote that the hospitals were quite good, with 61 percent of physicians in private practice. He might also have mentioned the presence of an art museum notable for the wealth of its holdings in a city of its size.7
This was not, unfortunately, the picture most citizens of the Commonwealth called to mind
when they thought of this aging, predominantly working-class city. Prevailing opinion held that Worcester had little chance against either Amherst or Boston. Not even the presence of several
high quality colleges--Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Clark University, and the College of the Holy Cross, or the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology (an internationally
known research center responsible for developing the recently introduced birth control pill, later
renamed the Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research), held much sway with educators (or journalists) on either end of the state.
Worcester , however, wasn’t listening to the nay-sayers. Although Worcester’s business
community cautiously refrained from lobbying the Donahue Commission during its statewide
hearings in 1961, when word leaked that the Commission would soon issue a report that would recommend both creation of a medical school and the best site to place it, the Worcester Area Chamber of Commerce (WCC) preemptively issued a statement declaring the advantages of
Worcester. On December 9, 1961, the WCC’s president told reporters that “In the best interests of Massachusetts people…we have had no alternative but to put before the commission the superior facilities available in Worcester…” He added, “This is not a selfish power grab on Worcester’s
part.”8 Soon after the bill authorizing the establishment of the new medical school was signed 66