Josie Rogers was an American physician and politician. She was the first female physician in Daytona Beach and the first woman to be elected mayor of a city in Florida in 1922, only two years after women gained the right to vote in elections in the state. [1] Known as Dr. Josie, she practiced medicine for 50 years, serving both black and white residents of her lifelong hometown. [2] She was related to Clemence Lozier, another pioneering female physician and suffragette, who was the cousin of her great-grandmother. [3]
Born in 1876 to David and Julia Rogers, Rogers lived her entire life - except for her years in university and medical training - in Daytona Beach, Florida, which was incorporated as a city the year that she was born. [2] Following her graduations from Alfred University in Alfred, New York and Hahnemann Medical School in Chicago, the young Rogers returned to Daytona Beach and became actively engaged with the community. [2] Rogers was a suffragette, helping to organize the area's League of Women Voters and the Palmetto Club, a woman's club still active to this day. [2] The majority of her accomplishments revolve around the health of individuals in her community. Rogers never married, nor did she ever move out of her childhood home. [2] She lived and practiced medicine in the home that her father had built in 1879 until her death in 1975 at the age on 98. [2] Her home, located between the Intercoastal Waterway and Beach Street in Daytona Beach was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986. [4]
Josie Rogers began her career in 1912 with her statewide posting to chair Florida's Department of Health. [2] She became chief of staff at the Halifax District Hospital. [1] Rogers also worked to place nurses in every school in Volusia County. In 1919, she started a program to provide health exams to all school children. Three years later, Rogers formed the first Negro Welfare Association, and two years after that, formed the city's first Recreation Board. [2] She helped to organize Daytona's YMCA and acted as director of the Halifax Historical Association. [2]
In 1925, Rogers attended the International Conference on Child Welfare in Geneva, Switzerland. [2] The Conference inspired the creation of International Children's Day. [5]
Volusia County is a county located in the east-central part of the U.S. state of Florida between the St. Johns River and the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2020 census, the county was home to 553,543 people, an increase of 11.9% from the 2010 census. It was founded on December 29, 1854, from part of Orange County, and was named for the community of Volusia, located in northwestern Volusia County. Its first county seat was Enterprise. Since 1887, its county seat has been DeLand.
Daytona Beach is a coastal resort city in Volusia County, Florida, United States. Located on the East Coast of the United States, its population was 72,647 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Deltona–Daytona Beach–Ormond Beach metropolitan area, and is a principal city of the Fun Coast region of Florida.
Ormond Beach is a city in Volusia County, Florida, United States. The population was 43,080 at the 2020 census. Ormond Beach lies directly north of Daytona Beach and is a principal city of the Deltona–Daytona Beach–Ormond Beach, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city is known as the birthplace of speed, as early adopters of motorized cars flocked to its hard-packed beaches for yearlong entertainment, since paved roads were not yet commonplace. Ormond Beach lies in Central Eastern Florida.
Mary Jane McLeod Bethune was an American educator, philanthropist, humanitarian, womanist, and civil rights activist. Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women in 1935, established the organization's flagship journal Aframerican Women's Journal, and presided for a myriad of African-American women's organizations including the National Association for Colored Women and the National Youth Administration's Negro Division.
Rebecca Lee Crumpler was an American physician, nurse and author. After studying at the New England Female Medical College, in 1864 she became the first African American woman to become a doctor of medicine in the United States. Crumpler was also one of the first female physician authors in the nineteenth century. In 1883, she published A Book of Medical Discourses. The book has two parts that cover the prevention and cure of infantile bowel complaints, and the life and growth of human beings. Dedicated to nurses and mothers, it focuses on maternal and pediatric medical care and was among the first publications written by an African American on the subject of medicine.
AdventHealth is a Seventh-day Adventist nonprofit organization headquartered in Altamonte Springs, Florida, that operates facilities in 9 states across the United States. It is the largest not-for-profit Protestant health care provider in the country. In 2021, it was the second largest hospital network in Florida. In February 2023, it was the fifteenth largest in the country. Currently AdventHealth operates 54 hospitals.
Louisa Garrett Anderson, CBE was a medical pioneer, a member of the Women's Social and Political Union, a suffragette, and social reformer. She was the daughter of the founding medical pioneer Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, whose biography she wrote in 1939.
Flora Murray was a Scottish medical pioneer, and a member of the Women's Social and Political Union suffragettes. From 1914 to the end of her life, she lived with her partner and fellow doctor Louisa Garrett Anderson.
Dame Mary Ann Dacomb Scharlieb, DBE was a pioneer British female physician and gynaecologist in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. She had worked in India. She was the first female student of medicine at Madras Medical College. After her graduation and work in India, she went to England to do her Postgraduation in Medicine (gynecology) and by her persistence she returned to the UK to become a qualified doctor. She returned to Madras and eventually lectured in London. She was the first woman to be elected to the honorary visiting staff of a hospital in the UK and one of the most distinguished women in medicine of her generation.
Martha George Rogers Ripley was an American physician, suffragist, and professor of medicine. Founder of the Maternity Hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Ripley was one of the most outspoken activists for disadvantaged female rights. A prominent leader in the American Woman Suffrage Association, Ripley also served six years as president of the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Association.
Harriette Vyda Simms Moore was an American educator and civil rights worker. She was the wife of Harry T. Moore, who founded the first branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Brevard County, Florida. The murder of the Moores was the first assassination to happen during the Civil Rights Movement and the only time both a husband and a wife were killed for their activism.
Seabreeze is a beachside neighborhood in Daytona Beach, Florida, which existed as an independent city from May 24, 1901, until January 1, 1926, when it merged with Daytona and Daytona Beach to become one consolidated city.
Cicely Delphine Williams, OM, CMG, FRCP was a Jamaican physician, most notable for her discovery and research into kwashiorkor, a condition of advanced malnutrition, and her campaign against the use of sweetened condensed milk and other artificial baby milks as substitutes for human breast milk.
Justina Laurena Ford was an American physician. She was the first licensed African American female doctor in Denver, Colorado, and practiced gynecology, obstetrics, and pediatrics from her home for half a century.
Alexandra Mary Chalmers Watson CBE,, known as Mona Chalmers Watson, was a British physician and head of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. The first woman to receive an MD from the University of Edinburgh, she helped found the Elsie Inglis Hospital for Women, was the first president of the Edinburgh Women's Citizen Association, a staff physician and later senior physician at the Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children, and co-edited the Encyclopaedia Medica with her husband, Douglas Chalmers Watson. At the time of her death in 1936, she was president of the Medical Women's Federation, having been elected May 1935.
Doctor Evelyn Stocking Crosslin (1919–1991) was an American physician. She was named to the Florida Women's Hall of Fame in 1995.
Isabella "Ella" Ferrier Pringle FRCPE was the first female Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE), in 1929. She practised as a medical missionary in Manchuria before a pioneering career in child health. In official documents she is referred to as Dr I. F. Pringle.
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.
Mary Holloway Wilhite was a 19th-century American physician and philanthropist. She was the first female medical graduate from Indiana, as well as the first female practitioner in the state. Wilhite made several important discoveries regarding the effects of medical pharmaceuticals in certain diseases. Her greatest success was in the treatment of women and children. A woman's suffrage and women's rights leader, she was also the founder of the Montgomery County, Indiana Orphans' home. Wilhite contributed regularly to the local newspapers.
AdventHealth Daytona Beach is a non-profit hospital campus in Daytona Beach, Florida, United States owned by AdventHealth. In 2009, the hospital moved to its current location from Ormond Beach, Florida. In 2019, the 10th 'Timmy's Playroom' opened at the hospital. In 2023, a mercy killing took place at AdventHealth Daytona Beach.