Arab American Doctor on the Alaskan Frontier
Dr. David Hasan Sleem’s Graduation. Photo courtesy of the Valdez Museum and Historical Archive.
Michelle McAfee - CRR Staff
Last fall, Marvin Wingfield presented a talk via Zoom at the Valdez Museum titled “David Hasan Sleem: Arab American Doctor on the Alaskan Frontier.” Wingfield is the former Education and Outreach Director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). He and his wife Vicki visited the museum earlier in the fall, researching the Lebanese doctor who lived a fascinating life and had a tremendous impact on the development of Valdez and Seward.
Dr. David Sleem was born to a prominent Druze family in 1860 in a small village in Mt. Lebanon in the province of Syria. Following in his father’s footsteps, he earned a BA in 1879 in Beirut, then continued on to medical school in 1887. A year later, he immigrated to the US and had a successful medical career in New York City.
Sleem’s life took an adventurous turn when he moved to the northwest after hearing of strikes in the Klondike and British Columbia. He left the east with five other men and reached Glenora, BC, a small settlement on the Stikine River, where they became stuck along with thousands of others due to the impassable trail to the gold fields.
Sleem then opened a sawmill which allowed him to stay, while his friends got discouraged and went home. He then trekked to the gold fields near Atlin the following year and purchased gold-bearing land with funds his brother sent him from Lebanon. However, the British Columbia parliament passed a law forbidding foreigners to acquire mining claims or own mineral properties, so Sleem headed to the Klondike and became a miner in Dawson.
Sleem followed the next gold strike to Nome but was behind the curve when he arrived. He found his way south and settled more permanently in Seward in 1904. The town was raw but grew quickly with stores, a bank, seven saloons, three churches, two hotels, electricity, waterworks, and a chamber of commerce.
Sleem opened a medical practice with all the modern methods and best medical equipment in the north. He helped create the social life in Seward, opening his home to meetings, dances, and religious services. He married Grace Lillian, twenty years his junior. Sometime later, he also became the leader of the Chamber of Commerce and initiated a reorganization that brought in new members.
In 1907, a national financial panic threw the Alaska Central Railroad into bankruptcy and sent Seward into a decline. There was a forced sale of the railroad to JP Morgan Guggenheim Alaska Syndicate, which was buying up Alaska and its economy. During this decline, many people were unemployed and left Seward for Valdez.
Sleem worked for the Alaska Central Railroad, ran his hospital, and became a traveling advocate for Seward.
The Alaska Northern Railroad was the successor to the AK Central Railroad. They enlisted Sleem to lead an expedition to the Iditarod gold fields, blazing a wagon trail and railroad extension while being the press spokesperson. Sleem also wrote articles published in the Alaska-Yukon Magazine promoting Seward, making very precise maps that created a more accurate picture of Alaska than previous maps.
In 1910, Sleem’s marriage ended, and Lillian moved in with her parents in Seattle. His enthusiasm for Seward waned, and he moved permanently to Valdez. That year, Sleem returned to New York City and sold his shares in an Egyptian bank to invest in mines. When he returned to Valdez, he bought 900 shares in the Cliff Mine and had shares in or co-owned nine other mining claims.
During this time, Valdez was experiencing a boom. Sleem’s medical practice picked up, and he contracted with the Episcopal Hospital and mining companies to handle their patients. One of Sleem’s primary achievements in Valdez was the development of an extensive health campaign to clean up the town and combat infectious diseases, which were a grave concern.
Sleem worked together with the city council, newspapers, ladies’ organizations, and the general public on public health and hygiene. He was elected public health officer in 1912- 1913, when understanding of the bacteriological origin of diseases was still relatively new.
Valdez streets, alleys, and streams were filthy and used to dump trash, garbage, and kitchen slop. There were outhouse cesspools and piles of manure for fertilizer all around town. City Council ordered a clean-up. They urged citizens to clean their property and sidewalks, and the city would clean the streets.
Sleem published detailed and graphic instructions on household sanitation including what chemicals to use. He also declared war on flies as spreaders of disease, offering a monetary prize, aimed mostly at children, for whoever bagged the most flies. The winner was an 11-year-old girl who turned in an enormous body count of 13,400 flies. Wingfield said to the group, “I hope she remembered to wash her hands after counting flies.” (The Zoom room erupted in laughs and yuks.)
Sleem urged the City Council to build a sewer to drain a block of McKinley Street that was particularly unsanitary, but they did not take action until a three-month-old child died of spinal meningitis. Then, they built the sewer.
In a published article, Sleem stated his frustration, “The power of a health officer is limited without the cooperation of a rational public. With an unmindful community, untrained in scientific observation, that continues in its habits, heedless of warnings from community leaders based on the most advanced scientific research.”
In 1913, the Governor of the Territory appointed Sleem to the Board of Medical Examiners, which reviewed doctors’ credentials. Sleem wrote to his nephew in Seattle, “I have great work to do in this country before I leave it. I must reap the fruits of my staying here for so long a time. And it is not very far off before we have activity in every line of business. The industry of the country is mining. It’s a new country, and a hard one to live in. We have begun to be, in part, a self-governing people, and for the first time in the history of the country, we have a legislature to make laws for ourselves.”
Later that year, Sleem was on a hunting trip when he experienced intense chest pains. He returned home, was doing better, and within a week, started seeing patients again. But, on October 11th, a patient entered his office, and as he greeted her, he collapsed and died. He was 53 years old.
Sleem’s family was notified, and his obituary was published all across Alaska. His family in Lebanon held a memorial service, and five thousand people attended. The funeral in Valdez was overflowing, and the town closed so everyone could attend.
Faith Revell, Curator of Education and Public Programs for the Valdez Museum opened the Zoom room for questions from approximately thirty people who attended. Participants were from Valdez, Seward, Anchorage, and elsewhere in Alaska—plus as far away as North Carolina and Washington state. Sleem’s family members stayed up in the very early morning hours in Europe and Lebanon to attend.
Hatem Sleem, from Lebanon, asked, “Maybe we could have some part of a museum where we can save this documentation? Because he is not the only one from the family who contributed greatly to history, I would say.” He chuckled, beaming a proud, bright smile onto the screen.
Yes, the Arab American Doctor on the Alaskan Frontier, Dr. David Sleem, contributed greatly to Alaska’s history.
Wingfield said in summary, “In Valdez and Seward, he made improvements in public health and probably saved a good many lives. He contributed significantly to Seward’s and Valdez’s transition from boomtowns to settled communities. He was a modernizer, a progressive reformer, committed to medicine, science, and education and dedicated to humane values.”