Laughinghouse was born in rural Pitt County, North Carolina. His grandfather, Dr. Charles James O’Hagan, a prominent physician, and his father, Captain Joseph John Laughinghouse, a Pitt County landowner, were charter members of the Pitt County branch of the Ku Klux Klan. Laughinghouse attended UNC Chapel Hill, and later received medical training at the University of Pennsylvania. After graduating in 1893, he returned to Greenville and worked in his grandfather’s medical practice until 1926. In 1910, Laughinghouse became a member of the North Carolina State Board of Health, and in 1916, he followed in his grandfather’s footsteps by becoming president of the Medical Society of North Carolina. Laughinghouse was recognized statewide for his efforts to vaccinate eastern North Carolinians against smallpox at the turn of the twentieth century. He also led the way against tuberculosis, one of the deadliest prevalent diseases at the time. There is no evidence that Laughinghouse was, like his father and grandfather, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, but he practiced medicine within the confines of Jim Crow segregation, i.e., for the white community.
In 1907, Laughinghouse became a member of the Greenville Chamber of Commerce’s Legislative Committee dedicated to establishing a training school for teachers in eastern North Carolina. Once the school had been established, he used his many contacts throughout Pitt County to encourage bond sales in support of Greenville’s bid to become the home for the new school. From the founding of ECTTS, Laughinghouse was the school physician. In addition to treating students in the infirmary, he promoted preventative measures on campus. As a progressive physician, he was an advocate of compulsory vaccinations. Due largely to the latter, the Training School, with the exception of an outbreak of influenza in 1918 (which occurred while he was serving his country in WWI), experienced no major epidemics.
In 1919, Laughinghouse noted that there had not been “a single death among the student body or the faculty” due to preventable disease at the Training School. Although there were isolated cases of smallpox, measles, mumps, typhoid fever, and tuberculosis, Laughinghouse’s emphasis on preventative care and vaccinations kept the campus healthy while other areas of the country suffered unfortunate mortality rates. Laughinghouse encouraged the teachers-in-training to discourage overeating and drinking among their future pupils, convinced that “a large proportion of America’s citizenship dig their graves with their teeth.”
In his final decade, Laughinghouse led an effort to establish a community hospital in Pitt County. Despite a difficult fight, in 1923 the county’s first hospital opened on the second floor of a feed store on Fifth Street. As was true during Jim Crow times, this hospital, like the Training School and so many other dimensions of life, provided medical attention along segregated lines. Yet still, in its energetic devotion to the practice of modern medicine, Vidant Medical Center stands as a more diverse and inclusive outgrowth of Laughinghouse’s work.
Sources
- Charles O'Hagan Laughinghouse Papers (#267), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.
- Jenkins, Mamie E. “Charles O’Hagan Laughinghouse,” The Training School Quarterly, Vol. 3, no. 1 (Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton, 1916). Pp. 19-24.
- Laughinghouse, Charles O’Hagan. “Diagnosis of Incipient Tuberculosis from the General Practitioner’s Standpoint,” The Charlotte Medical Journal, Vol. 72, no. 3 (Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton, 1915). Pp. 118-120.
- Laughinghouse, Charles O’Hagan. “Gathering Up the Fragments. Training School Quarterly. Vol. 2, no. 1. April, May, June, 1916 (Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton, 1916). Pp. 25-28.
- Laughinghouse, Charles O’Hagan. “The Health Record,” The Training School Quarterly. Vol. 7, no. 1. (Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton, 1919). Pp. 24-25.
- Laughinghouse, J. J. “Organization of Ku Klux in Pitt County.” The Daily Free Press (Kinston). November 6, 1922. P. 4.
- Pitt County Memorial Hospital Papers (LL 02.09), The William E. Laupus Health Sciences Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.
- Richard C. Stokes Papers (#402), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.
Citation Information
Title: Charles O'Hagan Laughinghouse
Author: John A. Tucker, PhD
Date of Publication: 6/16/2018