Evening Dispensary For Working Women and Girls

Last updated

The Evening Dispensary for Working Women and Girls was an innovative American health care service at the turn of the twentieth century. As a public dispensary, it provided "outpatient medical treatment and advice to patients, in contrast to the inpatient service provided by hospitals". [1] It offered medical treatment for poor women, educated the public on health matters, and provided female medical students with an opportunity to learn and gain experience.

Contents

History

Opened on March 1, 1891, and closed on March 1, 1910, [2] the Dispensary was founded by two Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania graduates, Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead, M.D. and Alice Hall, M.D. The two came to Baltimore and connected with the organization who petitioned Johns Hopkins Hospital and gained the interest of other individuals in Baltimore to open the clinic. During its existence, it had the same board of managers consisting of Alice T. Hall, Kate Campbell Hurd (Mead), Elizabeth T. King, Julia Rebecca Rogers, Bertha M. Smith, and Kate M. McLane, Anne Galbraith Carey, Dr. Lillian Welsh, M.D.. Their staff included Lilian Welsh, Mary Sherwood, Florence Sabin, and Elizabeth Hurdon, all devoted their time to practice medicine and help patients. Women physicians during this time lacked the opportunities necessary for their field, and the dispensary also provided lectures, medical training, and opportunities to women of higher education seeking post-graduate experience. [3] The free care was offered to the poor and needy, it established clean milk distribution for sick babies, [4] the first visiting nurse and public bath, [5] a social service department, provided a study of midwives and birth registration in Baltimore, as well as a study of tuberculosis. [2] Women now had the opportunity to find care from doctors of the same sex. [6] [7]

Founders

Lilian Welsh was a board member of the dispensary. She was born in 1858 in Pennsylvania. In 1889, at the age of 31, she received her medical degree from the Women's Medical College. To continue her medical training, she set off to Switzerland. There, she became acquainted with Mary Sherwood, who later recruited Dr. Welsh to become a part of the faculty at Goucher College, formerly known as Women's College of Baltimore. At Goucher College, she taught physiology and hygiene. [8] Throughout her career, she was a leader for public health initiatives, an advocate for women's rights, and worked to persuade medical schools in the surrounding areas to accept women into their medical schools. [9]

Julia Rebecca Rogers was one of the many women involved in establishing the Evening Dispensary for Working Women and Girls. In 1898, she also helped found the Baltimore Association for Promoting the University Education of Women. Julia Rebecca Rogers was also one of the women working towards persuading medical schools in the area to accept female students. Julia Rebecca Rogers and Dr. Lillian Welsh were personal friends. Julia Rebecca Rogers became acquainted with Goucher College through Dr. Lillian Welsh. Alongside the former First Lady Lou Hoover, she worked as an honorary chairman of the Citizen's Committee of the Goucher College Building Fund. In 1994, Julia Rebecca Rogers left Goucher College her estate which facilitated the expansion of the college's campus. [8]

Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead was born in 1867 in Quebec, Canada. Her interest in medicine was stimulated by her father who was a doctor and Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi. Dr. Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead was a strong advocate for women's rights, in particular in the medical field. She helped establish the dispensary and was also a part of the first institution to hire women physicians. Dr. Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead obtained her medical degree from the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1885. Afterwards, she spent a year in Boston, Massachusetts as an intern at Boston's New England Hospital for Women and Children. It was there where she met Dr. Marie Zakrzewska. Dr. Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead help many leadership positions and roles throughout her career. Dr. Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead oversaw the preventative health program at Bryn Mawr School for Girls. Dr. Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead was also a part of the team that incorporated Middlesex County Hospital. Her primary medical interests revolved around public health and gynecology. She obtained her training as a gynecologist in Vienna which led to her practicing gynecology in Connecticut in 1907. After 12 years of practicing as a gynecologist, Dr. Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead retired in 1925. Even after her retirement, she was actively dedicated to the women's rights movement. She continued doing research on women's health and continued to write the history of women in the medical field and medicine. She completed two volumes of the entire history of women in medicine up to the nineteenth century. She died in 1941, before she could finish the third volume. [10]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rosetta Sherwood Hall</span>

Rosetta Sherwood Hall was a medical missionary and educator. She founded the Pyongyang School for the Deaf and Blind. Dr. Hall spent forty-four years in Korea, helping develop educational resources for disabled Koreans and implementing women's medical training.

Merit-Ptah was thought to be a female chief physician of the pharaoh's court during the Second Dynasty of Egypt, c. 2700 BCE; she is purportedly referred as such on an inscription left on her grave at Saqqara by her son.

Peseshet, who lived under the Fourth Dynasty, is often credited with being the earliest known female physician in history. Some have credited Merit-Ptah with being the first female physician, but she is likely a fictional creation based upon Peseshet. Peseshet’s relevant title was "lady overseer of the female physicians," but whether she was a physician herself is uncertain. She also had the titles king's acquaintance, and overseer of funerary-priests of the king's mother.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vera Scantlebury Brown</span> Australian pediatrician

Vera Scantlebury Brown OBE was an Australian medical practitioner and pediatrician in Victoria, Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hattie Alexander</span> American pediatrician and microbiologist

Hattie Elizabeth Alexander was an American pediatrician and microbiologist. She earned her M.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1930 and continued her research and medical career at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. Alexander became the lead microbiologist and the head of the bacterial infections program at Columbia-Presbyterian. She occupied many prestigious positions at Columbia University and was well honored even after her death from liver cancer in 1968. Alexander is known for her development of the first effective remedies for Haemophilus influenzae infection, as well as being one of the first scientists to identify and study antibiotic resistance. She has received many awards and honors including the E. Mead Johnson Award in 1942, for her headway in pediatric research and antibiotic resistance. Alexander's research and studies helped lay the ground work for research into antibiotic and vaccine development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New England Hospital for Women and Children</span> Hospital in Massachusetts, United States

The New England Hospital for Women and Children was founded by Marie Zakrzewska on July 1, 1862. The Hospitals goal was to provide patients with competent female physicians, educate women in the study of medicine and train nurses to care for the sick. Until 1951 the hospital remained dedicated to women, it was then renamed to New England Hospital to include male patients. The hospital was renamed again to The Dimock Community Health Center in 1969. At present The Dimock Community Health Center provides a range of healthcare services including Adult & Pediatric Primary Care, Women's Healthcare and HIV/AIDS Specialty Care.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead</span> American gynecologist

Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead was a pioneering feminist and obstetrician who promoted the role of women in medicine. She wrote A History of Women in Medicine: From the Earliest of Times to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century in 1938. She was born in Danville, Quebec, Canada, and died in Haddam, Connecticut, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lillian H. South</span> American physician

Lillian Herald South Tye was an American physician from Bowling Green, Kentucky, who specialized in public health. South was a pioneer in her work as a bacteriologist, and she was a trailblazer as a female medical professional who broke prevalent gender barriers for women of her time.

Aemilia Hilaria was a Gallo-Roman physician. She practiced medicine, and wrote books on gynecology and obstetrics. She was called "Hilaria" due to her cheerfulness as a baby.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania</span>

The Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP) was founded in 1850, and was the second medical institution in the world established to train women in medicine to earn the M.D. degree. The New England Female Medical College had been established two years earlier in 1848. Originally called the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania, the college changed its name in 1867 to Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. The associated Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia was founded in 1861. Upon deciding to admit men in 1970, the college was renamed as the Medical College of Pennsylvania (MCP).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bertha Van Hoosen</span> American physician

Bertha Van Hoosen was an American surgeon devoted to women's health issues and the advancement of fellow women surgeons. Among other notable achievements, Van Hoosen was the first president and a founder of the American Medical Women's Association in 1915 and the first woman to be head of a medical division at a coeducational university. She published an autobiography detailing her personal experiences in medicine, Petticoat Surgeon.

Mary Sherwood was a physician, educator, and spokesperson for preventive medicine, public health, women's health, childcare. She played a vital role in many women's organizations and clubs, as well as contributed to many medical social movements in Maryland and Baltimore.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Bass</span> American physician

Mary Elizabeth Bass was an American physician, educator and suffragist. She was the first of two women to become faculty members at the medical school of Tulane University along with Edith Ballard. Bass worked to promote the efforts of women as physicians. She worked at Tulane for thirty years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kate Breckenridge Karpeles</span> American medical doctor (1887-1941)

Kate Breckenridge Karpeles was an American medical doctor. She was the first woman to be appointed a contract surgeon by the United States Army, during World War I, and she served as president of the American Medical Women's Association.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lilian Welsh</span> Physician, educator, suffragist and advocate

Lilian Welsh was an American physician, educator, suffragist, and advocate for women's health. She was on the faculty at Woman's College of Baltimore and an active member of National American Woman Suffrage Association. Welsh was posthumously inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame in 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Esther Choo</span> Emergency physician and professor

Esther Choo is an emergency physician and professor at the Oregon Health & Science University. She is a popular science communicator who has used social media to talk about racism and sexism in healthcare. She was the president of the Academy of Women in Academic Emergency Medicine and is a member of the American Association of Women Emergency Physicians. She was a co-founder and a board member of Time's Up.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nellie V. Mark</span> American physician, suffragist

Nellie V. Mark was an American physician and suffragist. In addition to looking after her medical practice, she lectured on personal hygiene, literary topics, and on woman suffrage. Mark served as vice-president of the Association for the Advancement of Women. She was a member of Just Government League of Baltimore, the Equal Suffrage League of Baltimore, the National Geographic Society, and the Arundell Club of Baltimore. Mark could not remember a time when she was not a suffragist and a doctor.

Sara Tew Mayo, M.D., (1869-1930) was a physician and humanitarian reformer in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. She served the underprivileged and advanced the cause of women as physicians at a time and place when few women were practicing physicians as a result of gender discrimination. Mayo was a founding member of the New Orleans Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children which was renamed the Sara Mayo Hospital in 1948.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phebe Stone</span> Physician in China

Phebe Stone was a physician and medical missionary who worked in Kiukiang (Jiujiang), China. She was the younger sister of the notable missionary Mary Stone, also known as Shi Meiyu. Her family was from the Hubei province in China and were one of a handful of Christians in the area. Stone went on to Goucher College in the United States for her undergraduate degree and later was awarded a fellowship to attend Johns Hopkins, where she received medical degree in 1918. Stone was the first Chinese woman to graduate from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Afterward, Stone briefly worked as a medical intern at a women's hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, then returned to her hometown of Jiujiang to take over the Danforth Hospital established by her sister Mary. She later founded the Bethel Mission and its encompassing hospital in 1920 along with Mary and the American missionary Jennie Hughes. She contracted tuberculosis and died in 1930.

References

  1. ↑ The eighteenth century dispensary movement. Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. Retrieved 29 December 2018.
  2. 1 2 More, Ellen S. (2009-06-01). Restoring the Balance: Women Physicians and the Profession of Medicine, 1850-1995. Harvard University Press. ISBN   9780674041233.
  3. ↑ Creese, Mary R. S. (2000-01-01). Ladies in the Laboratory? American and British Women in Science, 1800-1900: A Survey of Their Contributions to Research. Scarecrow Press. ISBN   9780585276847.
  4. ↑ Ogilvie, Marilyn; Harvey, Joy (2003-12-16). The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives From Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century. Routledge. ISBN   9781135963439.
  5. ↑ Williams, Marilyn T. (1991-01-01). Washing "the Great Unwashed": Public Baths in Urban America, 1840-1920 . Ohio State University Press. p.  118. ISBN   9780814205372. baltimore evening dispensary for working women and children.
  6. ↑ Directory of the Charitable and Beneficent Organizations of Baltimore and of Maryland: Together with a Summary of Laws, Etc. Press of the Friedenwald Company. 1892-01-01.
  7. ↑ Morantz-Sanchez, Regina (1985). Sympathy and science: Women physicians in American medicine. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 173–174. ISBN   978-0807848906.
  8. 1 2 "Julia Rebecca Rogers". Goucher College. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  9. ↑ "Lilian Welsh, M.D., Maryland Women's Hall of Fame". msa.maryland.gov. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  10. ↑ "Biography: Dr. Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead". Changing the Face of Medicine. United States National Library of Medicine. 2019. Retrieved 6 April 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.