History of the New
York Medical College
and Hospital for Women
Presented by Sylvain Cazalet
New York Medical College for Women (1873)
The New
York Medical College and Hospital for Women was incorporated
by a special act of the legislature, under the University of the State
of New York, April 14, 1863. The charter of this institution is still
valid.Dr.
Clemence S. Lozier was the pioneer who made it possible for women to
study medicine in New York City. Before this college was opened for
women students, there was no place in New York City where a woman could
study medicine.
Dr. Clemence Sophia
LozierDr.
Clemence Sophia Lozier was born December 11, 1813, in
Plainfield, New Jersey, and educated in the Plainfield Academy. She was
a cousin of Carroll Dunham. She married at seventeen, and opened a
school when she was nineteen. She was a gracious lady of her time,
though with a dominant personality and a “will to do” for
humanity. Because of this she abandoned her profession of teaching, and
secured admission in 1849 to the Central New York College of Rochester
and later to the Eclectic College in Syracuse. Graduating (1853) with
high honors, she opened her office in New York.Her practice
grew steadily, and soon her weekly health talks, given in her own
parlor, were popular. From this popularity grew the idea of a medical
college for women. Acting quickly, forcefully and with precision, at a
time in that period of history when defeat seemed the only outcome, she
secured the passage of the act by the legislature November, 1863, which
granted the charter for a medical college for women.Dr.
Lozier worked steadily, and on November 1, 1863, the New York Medical
College was opened at 724 Broadway. Seven students and a faculty of
eight doctors, four men and four women, constituted the College. It was
the spirit and the work of this unusual magnetic personality that
brought continuing success to her efforts and to the College. In June,
1868, a building on the corner of Second Avenue and Twelfth Street was
purchased for a college and hospital. Here for six years the work was
pursued, and the institution gained friends.
Dr. William Tod
Helmuth
President of the A.I.H. in 1867During
the next years, twenty-five in all, when Dr. Lozier was President and
Dean, she saw the College and Hospital rise from its small beginning of
seven students to a list of two hundred and nineteen graduate medical
women, settled in practice from Maine to California. Prejudice had been
partly overcome. No longer did men students hiss and jeer as visiting
women students came to amphitheaters for clinical instruction.Among
the members of the faculty at this time, besides Dr. Clemence S. Lozier,
President and Dean, were Dr. H. M. Dearborn, Dr.
William Tod Helmuth, Dr. Edmund Carleton, Dr. Rosalie H.
Stolz.
Elizabeth Cady
StantonWriting
in memoriam of his mother, her son, Dr. A. W. Lozier said, “Perhaps
no woman of her age has accomplished so much in so many different
directions for women. No one ever inspired women more with faith in
themselves, nor ever a readier hand worked with a readier heart for
mankind.” Her granddaughter, Mrs. Jessica Lozier Payne, public
speaker and commentator on current events, writes, “I as eighteen
years old when my grandmother, Dr. Clemence S. Lozier, died. My
strongest recollection of her is her gracious personality and gentle
beauty, with soft curls framing her face. Although forceful in
character, she gained results by persuasion and example. Many and
difficult were her problems, but sustained and inspired by her active
faith, she solved them, and won a prominent place in the medical
profession, consulting with Dr. Jacoby, Dr. Janeway and Dr. Helmuth. She
was a warn friend of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth
Cady Stanton.”1882
– Maria Augusta Generoso Estrella (1861-1946) graduates from New York
Medical College and Hospital for Women, becoming Brazil’s first female
physician. Due to the repercussion of her case, Brazilian higher
education schools opened their doors to women in 1881.
Dr M. Belle BrownNext in
line to carry on the work for women in medicine in the New York Medical
College and Hospital for Women was Dr. Phoebe J. Wait, who became the
dean. By this time, 1888, the College was located at 213 West 54th
Street.Many are
the tales of good fortune here – and of progress, but still the building
was inadequate for the growing needs. Dr. M.
Belle Brown succeeded Dr. Wait was dean.In 1897
a new building was erected at 19 West 101st Street. Dr. Helen Cooley
Palmer was the next dean, and following her for a short time, Dr. Emily
C. Charles. In 1914, Dr. Cornelia Chase Brant became the dean. Even at
that time, no hospital facilities were open to women for internship
except at that Hospital. The New York Medical College and Hospital for
Women, though maintaining the standard required by the Regents of the
State of New York, raised the entrance requirements, as did some of the
other colleges to two years’ pre-medical college work.
North American
Journal
of Homeopathy – 1896Properties
were bought for new and better equipped laboratories – chemical,
physiology and research. A medical library for this new laboratory wing
was purchased and endowed by Mr. M. W. Dominick in memory of his son,
Dr. Carleton Dominick, a member of the staff.The war
came. For four years, besides the regular medical courses, special war
work was accepted by the government and by the Red Cross.In 1918,
for the first time, women were accepted in the city hospitals, and the
women graduate physicians of the New York Medical College and Hospital
for Women entered Bellevue, Cumberland Street, and Willard Parker
Hospitals as interns.So runs
the history of New York State’s pioneer medical college for women,
started in 1863, by a pioneer woman with courage.In 1918,
the trustees, in accord with the President of their Board, deemed it
feasible to close the College. The women students were transferred to
the New York Homeopathic Medical College and
Fifth Avenue Hospital. Now, through the courtesy of the Dean,
Dr. J.A. W. Hetrick, the portrait of Dr. Clemence Sophia Lozier hangs in
that College.
New York Homeopathic
Medical College and Flower Hospital (1917)Source: http://www.rootsweb.com/~nwa/college.html
With permission of Barbara Payne
Citron
A Brief History of
New York Medical College
William Cullen
BryantNew York
Medical College owes its founding in 1860 to the vision of a group of
civic leaders in New York City who believed that medicine should be
practiced with greater sensitivity to the needs of patients. The group,
led by William Cullen Bryant,
the noted poet and editor of the Evening Post, was particularly
concerned with the condition of hospitals and medical education. During
those pre-Civil War years, New York City was plagued with slums,
garbage-laden streets and the population lived with the constant threat
of epidemics. Much of the city lacked running water. Of particular
concern to Bryant were some then common medical practices used to treat
disease, such as bleedings, purges, the use of leeches and the
administering of strong and unpalatable drugs in enormous doses. Bryant
was zealously devoted to the branch of medicine known as homeopathy,
which, among its tenets, advocated moderation in medicinal dosage,
exercise, a good diet, fresh air and rest in treating illness. The
school opened its doors on the corner of 20th street and Third Avenue as
the New York Homeopathic Medical College. At the College’s first
session, there were 59 students and a faculty of 8. By its fifth year of
operation the College’s reputation was very good and the student body
had grown to include representatives from 12 states and the Canadian
provinces. Bryant served as the medical school’s first president and
held the office of present of the Board of Trustees for 10 years.Advancing Medical
Careers for Women
Dr Emily StoweIn 1863,
a separate but related institution known as the New York Medical College
for Women was founded by Dr. Clemence Sophia Lozier, staffed and
supervised by many of the College’s male faculty. In 1867, this
institution graduated the first female physician in the country, Dr.
Emily Stowe, who had previously been refused admission to
every medical school in her native Canada. Dr. Susan McKinney, the first
African-American female physician in New York State and the third in the
nation, graduated from New York Medical College for Women in 1870 with
the highest grade in the class. When the institution closed in 1918,
students transferred to the College. Thus, New York Medical College
makes its claim to be among the first medical schools to admit women.Expansion and
GrowthExpansion
of the College’s facilities and programs began early in the College’s
history. By 1872, the medical moved into larger quarters made available
by the New York Ophthalmic Hospital at Third Avenue and 23rd Street.
This institution, one of only two in New York City at the time for the
treatment of ophthalmic diseases, had been placed under the College’s
supervision in 1867. Students were thus able to enroll in graduate study
in ophthalmology and had the opportunity to earn an Oculi et Auri
degree.Affiliation with
Metropolitan HospitalIn 1875,
Metropolitan Hospital opened as a municipal facility on Ward’s Island,
staffed largely by the faculty of New York Medical College. The
relationship, which continues, is among the nation’s oldest continuing
affiliations between a private medical school and a public hospital.Faculty
began to consider the desirability of establishing a hospital connected
to the school to afford closer opportunities for clinical instruction.
The Flower Free Surgical Hospital, built by New York Medical College in
1889, was the first teaching hospital in the country to be owned by a
medical college. It was constructed at York Avenue and 63rd Street with
funds given largely by Congressman Roswell P. Flower, later governor of
New York. It became possible now, for the College “to embrace
under its jurisdiction a free hospital for treatment of the poor and for
clinical instruction of its students” as the minutes of the Board of
Trustees duly recorded.Reputation for
Training CliniciansBy 1896,
the College’s reputation for training superb clinicians and scholars
was recognized by the Board of Regents of the State of New York. The
College ranked first in the state in the percentage of graduates who
passed examinations for licensure conducted by that Board. The faculty’s
ability and enthusiasm for teaching resulted in a strong curriculum of
theoretical and practical instruction for medical students, a tradition
that continues to this day.Nation’s First
Minority Scholarship ProgramIn 1928,
the College became the first medical school in the nation to establish a
scholarship program specifically for minority students through the
efforts of Walter Gray Crump, Sr., M.D. An alumnus and voluntary faculty
member who participated vigorously in the academic life of the College,
Dr. Crump taught surgery, served as a staff surgeon at other hospitals,
was a founder of the New York Medical College for Women, was a trustee
of Tuskegee Institute and Howard University and assumed a leading role
in the advancement of minority education and minority affairs. Dr. Crump
was eventually awarded the rank of emeritus professor in recognition of
his dedication and visionary contributions to the College.By 1935,
the College had transferred its outpatient activities to the Fifth
Avenue Hospital at Fifth Avenue and 106th Street. The College (including
Flower Hospital) and Fifth Avenue Hospital merged in 1938 and became New
York Medical College, Flower and Fifth Avenue Hospitals.
Biography of William
Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)
William Cullen
BryantWilliam
Cullen Bryant was a young lawyer when his poem
“Thanatopsis” first appeared in the North
American Review in 1817. Inspired by the romantic lyrics of
William Wordsworth, Bryant found his subject in the American landscape,
especially that of New England. By 1825, critics on both sides of the
Atlantic called him the finest poet in the United States. But reputation
alone could not support his family, and in 1826 Bryant joined the New
York Evening Post. By 1840, Bryant had largely abandoned
poetry to become one of the country’s leading advocates for abolition.
From 1856 on, the Evening Post was a
Republican paper, supporting the arming of abolitionist settlers in
Kansas, deriding the Dred Scott decision, and celebrating John Brown as
a martyr. In 1860, Bryant introduced Abraham Lincoln before the audience
at Cooper Union in New York. Later, Bryant and the Evening
Post influenced Lincoln’s decision to issue the Emancipation
Proclamation.
William Cullen
BryantNew York Medical
College owes its founding in 1860 to the vision of a group of civic
leaders in New York City who believed that medicine should be practiced
with greater sensitivity to the patients. The group, led by William
Cullen Bryant, was particularly concerned with the condition of
hospitals and medical education. Bryant was zealously devoted to the
branch of medicine known as homeopathy, which, among its tenets,
advocated moderation in medicinal dosage, exercise, a good diet, fresh
air and rest in treating illness. The school opened as the New York
Homeopathic Medical College.William Cullen Bryant
was president of the New York Homeopathic Society.
Biography of Dr
Clemence Sophia Harned Lozier (1813-1888)
Dr. Clemence Sophia LozierDr.
Clemence Sophia Lozier was one of the earliest women who
practiced medicine and was thoroughly identified with the cause of
medical education for women.She was
born in Plainfield, New Jersey, December 11, 1813, and left an orphan at
the age of eleven. At seventeen she left school to marry Abraham Witton
Lozier, an architect by profession, who built for her a home in Tenth
Street, New York, where they lived until 1837. Then the ill health of
her husband threw upon her the support of the little family.Mrs.
Lozier opened a school for young ladies and for eleven years it drew its
clientele from families of the highest social standing in New York.
Dr Elisabeth Blackwell
first woman medical doctor
During this
period she studied medicine under the direction of her brother, Dr.
William Harned. In 1837 her husband died and she moved to Albany where
she continued the charitable work among the poor, which she had
commenced in New York under the Moral Reform Society.Learning
that Miss Elizabeth Blackwell, after
great difficulties, had graduated from the medical college in Geneva,
Mrs. Lozier decided to take advantage of the same opportunity, but
Geneva, frightened by the result of having one woman attend the clinics,
refused to give a second woman the chance.Mrs.
Lozier attended a course of medical lectures at the Central New York
College at Rochester, and later was admitted to the Syracuse Eclectic
College where she graduated in 1853.
The General Lecture-Room, ca 1860On
receiving her diploma she returned to New York and entered at once in
the practice of her profession, in which she met signal success from the
first. In her own home she gave a course of
lectures to women on anatomy, physiology, and hygiene, and
from these crowded lectures came the idea of a medical college for women
in this city.A
charter was secured by Dr. Lozier by the passage of an Act of
Legislature in November, 1863, after a long and bitter struggle.This
college formally opened with a class of seven students in rooms at 724
Broadway. The faculty consisted of four men and four women, Dr. Lozier
taking the Chair of Diseases of Women and Children. She was also
President of the College.In June,
1868, a property for both college and hospital purposes was purchased at
Second Avenue and 12th Street. Eleven years later 136 women had
graduated from this College, and during the 25 years in which she was
permitted to note the results of her foundation, Dr. Lozier saw the
College grow from its small beginning to be known and recognized as
honorably as any in the country. 219 women were graduated and settled in
practice from Maine to California. The hospital cared for 200 patients
annually and the dispensary served the needs of nearly 2,000 each year,
all in the hands of her own students and graduates.In her
own practice she was pre-eminently successful and spent a large part of
her income to advance the cause of women. For seven years she
maintained, largely from her own purse, the Homeopathic Medical College
and Hospital for Women. Then she made it a gift of ten thousand dollars
and turned it over to its Board of Trustees, who appointed her dean.Her own
home was always open to advocates of women’s cause, and in her parlors
were held monthly meetings. The most noted reformers of those days were
Miss Susan B. Anthony, Mrs.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Wendell Phillips,
Hamilton Wilcox and Mr and Mrs. Gerritt Smith.
Miss Susan B. Anthony often made her headquarters with Dr. Lozier who
helped her with considerable sums when her publication, The Revolution,
fell in financial difficulties.
Susan B. Anthony
Wendell Phillips
Gerrit Smith
Ann C. SmithDr.
Lozier was small and slender and possessed unusual personal beauty. her
fine head and benevolent countenance marked her as a woman of
intelligence and character while her gentle manner, her modesty and
unfailing tact and charm won her a host of friends.
Dr James Marion
Sims
Dr John Murray
Carnochan
Dr Valentine MottShe had
a high standing in her profession and was often called in consultation
by the leading physicians of her day, including Dr.
James Marion Sims, Dr. Carnochan,
Dr. Jacoby, Dr. Valentine Mott, Dr.
Carrol Dunham (Teatcher at New York
Homeopathic Medical College) (She was a cousin of Carroll
Dunham.) and a host of others.
Dr Carroll Dunham
President of the A.I.H.
The
keynote of her whole life was her spiritual faith and belief, for she
was deeply religious. She did not neglect her home life, nor sacrifice
it to her professional career. With a great love for children and
animals her heart went out to everyone who suffered, and this eager
sympathy was the core of all her energies.All her
children died in early infancy except her seventh and last son, who also
was a physician. Dr. Abraham Witton Lozier married twice and both his
wives studied medicine and were graduates of his mother’s college. Of
his three sons and one daughter only one remains [at time of the writing
of this article], Jessica Lozier Payne who married Stephen Henry Payne
of Elmira, New York, in 1896. Her father died the day before she was
married, having survived his mother eight years.Dr.
Clemence Sophia Lozier – idealist, optimist and worker, died of angina
pectoris April 26, 1888, at the age of 76 in her home, 103 West 48th
Street, New York. She kept her faculties and her interest to the last
moment of her busy life in which her one motto had been
“Service.”Regarding
the family and medical background of Dr. Lozier, Eminent Women of the
Age gives the following:“Her
father was a farmer, David Harned – a name well known at that period in
the Methodist Church, of which he was a faithful member, and in which
his brothers were successful preachers. Her mother was Hannah Walker.
Previous to their residence in New Jersey, they spent some years in
Virginia, where Indian tribes, noted for their sagacity, were then
numerous. Mrs. Harned, a devout Quakeress, and with much missionary
spirit, mingled freely with them. From them she gained valuable
information, which, added to reading and close observation, with strong
natural predilection, qualified her to act efficiently in the
neighborhood as an attendant upon the sick. Subsequently she spent seven
years in New York City engaged in general practice with the advice and
co-operation of her cousins, Drs. Dunham and Kissam, by whom she was
highly esteemed. William Harned, an elder brother of Clemence, was also
a physician of good reputation in New York, and for some time partner of
Dr. Doane, formerly quarantine physician, in an extensive chemical
laboratory.”Small
wonder then that Clemence Lozier passed on the medical torch to her own
son, Dr. Abraham Witton Lozier.Source: http://www.rootsweb.com/~nwa/clemence.html
With permission of Barbara Payne Citron
Biography of Dr M.
Belle Brown
Dr M. Belle BrownM.
Belle Brown, M.D. The professional career of M. Belle Brown,
M.D., continued over a period of nearly forty years, all of which were
passed in New York, although she is now one of the greatly respected
residents of Troy, having retired from professional activities. Her
active life possessed features of intense interest, inasmuch as it
assisted in breaking through the barriers of professional bigotry which
sought to bar women from practicing the healing art as a vocation. To
her example, winning, by assiduous attention to her calls and by
profound knowledge of the art and skill in its practice, a high place
among the reputable practitioners of medicine and surgery, no less than
by her persistent efforts to open the doors of professional preferment
to deserving and properly trained women, has been due largely the rapid
advance which the last quarter of a century has shone in giving women
the privilege accorded to the other sex, of ministering to the ills and
accidents of humanity. Doctor Brown was born in Staunton township, Miami
county, Ohio, in 1848, a daughter of Daniel and Eliza (Telford) Brown,
the latter being a daughter of Andrew Telford, a pioneer of Miami
county. Daniel Brown was born at Providence, R.I., his father being
Arnold Brown and his Grandfather being Rev. Chad Brown, who came from
England in 1638 and settled in Rhode Island and who was ordained a
minister of the Baptist church in 1642. The great-grandsons of Rev. Chad
Brown, John and James Brown, bought and presented land to the State for
the site of Brown University, the cornerstone for which was laid in 1770
by John Brown. In the family of Daniel and Eliza Brown there were six
children: Cyrus Telford, Cornelia, M. Belle, Rebecca, Arnold and Harry.
The early education of M. Belle Brown was acquired in the public schools
of Troy, and in 1876 she entered the New York College of Medicine for
Women, from which she w as duly graduated in 1879. At that time she
commenced practice at her office on West Thirty-fourth street, New York
City, but in a short time purchased property at No. 30, West Fifty-first
street, New York City, and there practiced from 1890 until her
retirement. Doctor Brown began her practice among strangers and with no
social prestige, in the face of prejudice and among a community
intensely devoted to material pursuits she sought employment as a
physician, relying upon her own ability and skill to win a way to
employment and recognition. Her subsequent experience, during the
earlier years, was not free from embarrassment or annoyance, but her
thorough knowledge commended her to all with whom she came into contact,
and she received the kindly aid and encouragement of some of the most
eminent New York physicians and surgeons of the day. During the earlier
years her practice took her frequently to the poorer quarters of the
metropolis, and she possesses a large fund of interesting experiences to
relate of this period of her career. One of the few practicing women
physicians of her time, her calls often came at night, and, armed with a
physician’s badge, her medical and surgical case, she would grope her
way through dark tenement hallways, lighted only by the candle which she
carried, to the bedside of some unfortunate fellow-creature. At no time
during her practice in New York did she refuse to respond to a call,
even though there was little or no financial return forthcoming. Later,
Doctor Brown decided to take up surgery, and studied with a number of
noted surgeons, including the noted Doctor Bull, also attending clinics
at New York City and Chicago. Thereafter she gave special attention to
surgery, and for various years performed operations in abdominal and
pelvic surgery with skill and more than average success. Indeed her
reputation for skill passed beyond the boundaries of her city and state,
and she was summoned from distant points to perform major operations of
a difficult and delicate character. She rose to influence and obtained
recognition through solid merit, founded upon good natural abilities,
ripened by liberal scholastic training and matured by thorough
scientific study and long, continuous and assiduous practice. With all
these acquisitions, Doctor Brown fully preserved the innate delicacy of
her womanly nature, and was none the less a lady because she was a
physician, surgeon and professor. Doctor Brown became, a member of the
faculty of the New York Medical College for Women, and eventually was
made the dean of that institution, succeeding in that post the brilliant
Dr. Clemence Sophia Lozier, pioneer physician and surgeon of her sex,
the founder of the first medical college for women in New York, a
prominent woman suffragist and active in reform and philanthropic
movements. Doctor Brown was also a member of the consulting staff of
Memorial Hospital, Brooklyn. In 1911, she was forced to undergo an
operation at Battle Creek Sanitarium, and this she underwent without the
use of anaesthetics, she herself directing the operation, which proved a
decided success. Doctor Brown is also the discoverer of a remedy for
mal-de-mere, or sea-sickness, and train-nausea. Ship-shape, the trade
name for this medicine, has been widely recognized, is endorsed not only
by sea and land travelers of experience and reliability but also by
eminent members of the medical profession, and enjoys an excellent sale.
After a long and distinguished career, characterized by high attainment,
Doctor Brown retired to her old home in Miami county, and in 1917 came
to Troy. Here, during the war period, she was intensely active in
raising funds for the American Hospital in France, as well as for the
Red Cross, working indefatigably in the cause and giving the best of her
strength and talents. In her efforts to procure the recognition of women
in the higher departments of employment, she has claimed for them
nothing on the score of gallantry or sympathy, realizing that the only
path to genuine and lasting success is through preparation and fitness
for any and all callings to which women may aspire. She has only claimed
for them equality underline conditions; and her own example is a
stimulating one. Doctor Brown is very proud of the fact that she never
lost a patient.Courtesy of Covington, Miami County
Ohio – Mr Joe Bosserman
http://www.tdn-net.com/genealogy/stories/biograph/biog-b/3027.htm
Biography of Mary
Jane Safford (1834-1891)
Dr Mary Jane
SaffordMary
Safford was born on December 31, 1834, in Hyde Park, Vermont,
but grew up from the age of three in Crete, Illinois. During the 1850s,
she taught school while living with an older brother successively in
Joliet, Shawneetown, and Cairo, Illinois. At the outbreak of the Civil
War in the spring of 1861, Cairo became a town of some strategic
importance because of its situation at the confluence of the Ohio and
Mississippi rivers. The town was quickly occupied by volunteer troops
from Chicago, and almost as quickly a variety of epidemic diseases broke
out in the hastily constructed camps behind the levee. Safford began
visiting the camps to tend the sick and to distribute food she had
prepared. She gradually won the respect of officers and surgeons who had
initially opposed her, and she was soon permitted to draw upon supplies
collected and forwarded by the U.S. Sanitary Commission. By summer she
was working closely with “Mother” Mary Ann Bickerdyke, who
gave her some training in nursing. In November 1861 Safford nursed the
wounded on the battlefield at Belmont, Missouri. In February 1862 she
and Bickerdyke helped transport wounded from Fort Donelson to Cairo, and
in April that year, following the Battle of Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing)
in southwestern Tennessee, she worked aboard the hospital ship Hazel
Dell. By that time her almost ceaseless labors had left her utterly
exhausted, and she saw no more service during the war.After an extended
convalescent tour of Europe Safford returned to the United States
determined to become a physician. She graduated from the New York
Medical College for Women in 1869 and then pursued advanced training in
Europe for three years. At the University of Breslau, Germany (now
Wroclaw, Poland), she became the first woman to perform an ovariotomy.
In 1872 she opened a private practice in Chicago. The next year, after
her marriage to a Bostonian, she moved her practice to that city and
became professor of women’s diseases at the Boston University School of
Medicine and a staff physician at the Massachusetts Homeopathic
Hospital. She retired from medical practice in 1886 and a short time
later moved to Tarpon Springs, Florida, where she died on December 8,
1891.
Biography of Susan
Smith McKinney Steward (1848-1919)
Dr Susan McKinney
StewardIn 1870,
over twenty years after Emily Blackwell became the first American woman
physician, Susan Smith McKinney Steward
(1848-1919) became the third black American woman physician. She
graduated from the Homeopathic New York Medical College for Women. She
was the seventh of ten children born to Sylvanus and Anne Springsteel
Smith. She belonged to a family of prosperous pork merchants in New
York.She
became an extremely successful physician with offices in Brooklyn and
Manhattan. She also served on the staffs of the New York Hospital for
Women, the Brooklyn Women’s Homeopathic Hospital, and the Brooklyn home
for Aged Colored People. She was also a church organist and choirmaster.
She founded the Woman’s Local Union, black New York’s leading women’s
club, and the Equal Suffrage League of Brooklyn.“Fortunate
are the men who marry these [black physicians] women from an economic
standpoint…They are blessed in a three-fold measure…[taking] unto
themselves a wife, a trained nurse, and a doctor.”“I
[caution the black woman physician]…to avoid becoming unevenly yoked…such
a companion will prove to be a millstone hanged around her neck.”
Most black woman physicians married black educators, ministers or
doctors.Black
women physicians founded an array of health care institutions for their
communities. They established hospitals and clinics, trained nurses,
taught sanitation, and founded homes and services for the poor and
oppressed of both races. Their need in society was overshadowed by the
convergence of racism, sexism, and professionalization which resulted in
a significant reduction in the number of black women physicians in the
1920s. They instead focussed on nursing as a more viable alternative.They
were self-reliant, determined women who successfully combined a
multiplicity of roles as physicians, wives, mothers, daughters, and
community leaders.
Biography of Dr
Emily Howard Jennings Stowe (1831-1903)
Dr Emily StoweWhen Emily
Howard Jennings was born in 1831, girls’ lives followed a set
pattern. Some girls secretly dreamed of becoming doctors or lawyers.
Others just wished for a good education. Their dreams remained empty
wishes, unlikely to come true. In the Victorian age, every girl’s future
was limited to housework and child care.Recently,
I got into a discussion with my children about history, in general, and
Canadian history, in particular, and I was disappointed to learn that it
was their opinion that history was boring. In my opinion, history is
exciting but it is the teaching of history that can be boring. Well, sad
to say, Sydell Waxman proves me right.Emily
Howard Jennings is a true Canadian heroine. Fortunate to be born into a
Quaker community that accepted women as equals, Emily received a good
education and was trained to be a teacher, a profession at which she was
very successful. But, despite her achievements, which were more than the
nineteenth-century woman could reasonably hope for, Emily wanted to
accomplish more.Emily
learned about homeopathic medicine from the Jennings’ family friend, Dr.
Joseph Lancaster, and, with the support of her husband John Stowe, she
decided to try a new career. When she tried to enrol at the Toronto
School of Medicine, however, she was told that women would never be
accepted. Emily promised that one day women would have the same
opportunities as men.She went
off to study homeopathic medicine at the New York Medical College for
Women and, in 1867, she became Canada’s first practising female
physician. In 1871, in order to meet licensing requirements, Emily and
Jenny Trout became the first women to attend lectures at the Toronto
School of Medicine. This was a difficult period for both of them as both
students and faculty went out of their way to embarrass and humiliate
them. Emily failed and went back to practising without a licence. Jenny
Trout tried again and became the first licensed female physician in
Canada.Emily
Howard Jennings Stowe became one of Canada’s leading feminists. She
founded one of the earliest female suffrage groups and was instrumental
in the mock parliament of 1896 where a parliament of women, using all of
the arguments men had used against them, refused to give men the vote.
She helped found the Women’s Medical College in Toronto in 1883 and died
in 1903, fourteen years before women got the vote in Canada.
Biography of Dr
James Marion Sims (1813-1883)
Dr James Marion
SimsHis
accomplishments in medicine, notably the development of techniques in
the field of gynecology, contributed to the advancement of medical
science and the alleviation of human suffering.James
Marion Sims is recognized throughout the world as the founder of the
field of gynecology. Dr. Sims’ unparalleled successes placed him in
demand as far afield as the royal houses of Europe. He counted among his
patients Napoleon III’s Empress Eugenie of France, Scotland’s Duchess of
Hamilton and the Empress of Austria.Entering
medicine when it was less a science than today, Sims early discovered
the need for new techniques and thought unhampered by medical textbooks
unchanged through a hundred years. Sims blazed a career of original
operations and techniques seldom equaled in medical history. He
established the first woman’s hospital in history in Montgomery in 1845.
Later, in New York, he established the Woman’s Hospital, which became
the forerunner and pattern for similar institutions around the world.Dr.
Sims practiced for several years in Paris and London and accepted
invitations to perform his unique operations before leading surgeons in
a number of other cities. Several European governments honored him with
their highest awards. New York claims Sims as its own by virtue of his
work and death there. South Carolina claims him by reason of his birth
in Lancaster, S.C., but Alabama was the scene of Sims’ early work and
his initial successes that were to spring him into an honored spot in
medical annals.
Charter of
the
New York Medical College and Hospital for Women,
Chapter 123
An Act to incorporate the New York Medical College for Women
Passed April 14, 1863The People of the State of New York, represented
in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:Section 1 – Maria
Louisa Ewen, Nancy Fish, Maria L. Oscanyan, Elizabeth S. S. Eaton,
Martha A. Elliott, Augusta T. C. Niven, A. Ensign Newman, of New York
City; Matilda C. Perry, of Albany City; Maria S. Connolly, of New York
City; Elizabeth Ransom, of Fort Hamilton, N.Y., Mary Ward, Sarah Ann
Martin, Elvina A. Lane, Sarah A. King, Laura M. Ward, Anna C. Van Ness,
Georgiana Gray, Frances S. Rugg, Mary A. Camerden, Harriet P. R. White,
Catherine Buckley, Eliza A. King, Sarah Andrews, of New York City, Maria
A. M. Fowle, of Brooklyn, N.Y., Lydia E. Rushby, Mary F. James,
Charlotte Fowler Wells, Margaret Austin, of New York City, and S. S.
Nivison, of Tompkins County, N.Y., and their associates, are hereby
constituted a body corporate, by the name of the “New York Medical
College for Women,” to be located in the City of New York, for the
purpose of instruction in the department of learning and medical science
professed and taught by said College.Section 2 – The
said corporation may hold and possess real and personal estate to the
amount of one hundred thousand dollars, and the funds or property
thereof shall not be used for any other purpose than that declared in
the preceding section. The said corporation may also hold such
collections of books, and of the productions of mature and of art, as it
may need for purposes of medical and clinical instruction.Section 3 – The
persons severally named in the first section of this act, are hereby
appointed trustees of the said corporation, with power to fill any
vacancy in their board.Section 4 – The
trustees, for the time being, shall have power to grant and confer the
degree of doctor of medicine upon any person of the age of twenty-one
years, of good moral character, upon the recommendation of the Board of
Professors, who shall be appointed by the trustees of said College; but
no person shall received a diploma, conferring such degree, unless said
person have pursued the study of medical science for at least three
years, after the age of sixteen, with some physician or surgeon, duly
authorized by law to practice in the profession, and shall also, after
that age, have attended two complete courses of all the lectures
delivered in some incorporated medical college; the last of which course
shall have been delivered by the professors of said college.Section 5 – The
said College shall be subject to the visitation of the Regents of the
University, and shall annually report to them.Section 6 – The
corporation hereby created shall possess the powers, and be subject to
the provisions and liabilities of title three, of chapter eighteen, of
the first part of the Revised Statutes.Section 7 – The
Legislature may at any time alter, modify, or repeal this act.Section 8 – This
act shall take effect immediately.State of New York,
Office of the Secretary of StateI have compared the preceding with the original law
on file in this office, and do hereby certify that the same is a correct
transcript therefrom and of the whole of said original law.Given under my hand and seal of office, at the City
of Albany, the 18th day of April, in the year one thousand eight hundred
and sixty-three.J. Wesley Smith,
Secretary of State
[Seal]Laws of 1864,
Chap. 230, p. 483
An Act to amend an act entitled an act to
incorporate The New York Medical College for Women, passed April 14,
1863:Passed April 19, 1864
The People of the State of New York, represented in
Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:Section 1 –
Section two of “An Act entitled an act to incorporate the New York
Medical College for Women, passed April 14, 1863,” is hereby
amended to read as follows:Section 2 – The
said corporation may hold and possess real and personal estate to the
amount of one hundred thousand dollars, and the funds or property
thereof shall not be used for any other purpose than that declared in
the preceding section, except for hospital purposes. The said
corporation may also hold such collection of books, and the productions
of nature and art, as it may need for the purposes of medical and
clinical instruction; and said corporation shall be known and designated
as the New York Medical College for Women and Hospital for Women and
Children.Sec. 3 – This act shall take effect immediately.
Charter of
the
New York Medical College and Hospital for Women,
Amended June 12, 1866University of the State of New York
By the Regents of the University of the State of
New York: Whereas, in and by an act of the Legislature of the
said State of New York, passed March 30th, 1866, it is enacted that the
Regents of the University shall possess the same powers in respect to
the charter or acts of incorporation of the New York Medical College for
Women, and Hospital for Women and Children, as if the said charter had
been granted by the Regents, and the said college had been incorporated
by the said Regents subsequent to the first day of May, eighteen hundred
and fifty-three:And whereas application has been made in due
form to the said Regents to amend the charter of the said Institution in
several respects, and such application has been duly considered:Now therefore be it known, That the said
Regents, by virtue of the authority in them by law vested, do ordain,
determine and declareFirst. The
name of the said corporation is hereby changed to “The New York
Medical College and Hospital for Women,” by which name it shall
hereafter be called and known.Second.
Hereafter nine members of the Board of Trustees of the said institution
shall form a quorum for the transaction of business; and no election
shall be held to fill the place of any trustee whose seat shall become
vacant, until after the number of trustees shall have been reduced to
less than seventeen, and thereafter the number of trustees shall be
seventeen. Neither the wife nor the husband of any professor in said
college or hospital shall be a member of the Board of Trustees.Third. The
Trustees shall have power to grant and confer the degree of Doctor of
Medicine upon any person of the age of twenty-one years, of good moral
character, upon the recommendation of the Board of Professors and the
approval of a Board of Censors composed of at least five reputable
physicians to be appointed by the said Trustees, who shall certify that
such person has creditably sustained, in their presence, a critical
examination in all the related branches of medical science; but no
person shall receive a diploma conferring such a degree unless such
person shall have pursued the study of medical science for at least
three years after the age of eighteen years with some physician or
surgeon duly authorized by law to practice in the profession, and shall
also after that age have attended two complete courses of all the
lectures delivered in some incorporated medical college, the latter of
which courses shall have been delivered by the professors of the said
college.Fourth.
The officers of the said Board of Trustees, elected at the last election
of such officers, shall continue to hold their offices until the next
annual meeting of the Board, and they and their successors shall hold
their offices until others shall be elected in their places; and in case
of a failure to elect such officers or any of them at any annual
meeting, such election may be held at any subsequent meeting of the
trustees.Fifth.
This ordinance shall take effect immediately, and the said Regents may
at any time alter, amend, or repeal the same.In Witness whereof, the said Regents have caused
their common Seal to be affixed, and their Chancellor and Secretary have
hereto subscribed their names, this twelfth day of June, in the year one
thousand eight hundred and sixty-six.[Seal]
John V. L. Pruyn,
Chancellor of the UniversityS.P. Woolworth, Secretary
Source: http://www.rootsweb.com/~nwa/charter.html
With permission of Barbara Payne Citron
Sources:
“History of Women in
Medicine” by Bertha L. Selmon, M.D. in Medical Woman’s Journal,
April 1946.Biorgraphy of Dr M. Belle Brown: Courtesy
of Covington, Miami County Ohio – Mr Joe Bosserman
http://www.tdn-net.com/genealogy/stories/biograph/biog-b/3027.htmNotable Women Ancestors: http://www.rootsweb.com/~nwa/index.html
New York Medical College: http://www.nymc.edu/nymc.htm
Alabama Hall of Fame: http://www.archives.state.al.us/famous/j_sims.html
Copyright
© Sylvain Cazalet 2001
