 Northwestern Memorial Hospital was founded on September 1, 1972, by the consolidation of Passavant Memorial and Wesley Memorial, two of Chicago's oldest hospitals.The merging of Passavant and Wesley created the Midwest’s largest private, nonprofit hospital at the time.In 1914 philanthropist and former Northwestern University student James Deering made a $1 million gift to then Wesley Memorial in support of free care and to solidify the hospital’s relationship with Northwestern University’s medical school; today known as Feinberg School of Medicine.