Ruth J. Abram, Editor"Send Us a Lady Physician"Women Doctors in America, 1853–1920In the latter part of the nineteenth century, women, who had hitherto been barrred from medical schools, were gradually granted the freedom to study and practice medicine. Indeed, by 1900, over 7,000 female physicians were practicing in America. Women were sought after to fill the void in women's health care—a substantial one, thanks to Victorian mores—as well as to imbue the medical profession with dignity which one women, it was believed, could supply. Thus the stereotype of women as gentle, virtuous creatures, natural healers, worked in their favor, opening doors to a major profession. Women established thriving private practices, occupied leadership positions in various medical institutions, served as professors and deans in medical schools for women, and were members and officers of medical societies. Their future in medicine seemed assured. Yet by 1920 the number of women doctors had plummeted. New barriers inhibited their entry into medicine and created obstacles in the careers of established women doctors. Not until the 1970s would America's women physicians recoup their nineteenth-century gains.
The irony of women's acceptance into the medical world, and the unfortunate
decline in their status at the beginning of the twentieth century, is illustrated
in this volume through words and pictures. By focusing on the class of 1879 at
the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, the authors of the various essays
depict individual trials, frustrations, and victories of nineteenth-century history
and how it affects us all today.
Ruth J. Abram is founder and president of Paraphrase, Inc., an organization dedicated to bringing serious history to the American public. 
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1985 / paperback / ISBN 0-393-30278-4 / 8-1/2" x 10" / 256 pages / History/Women's Studies | |||||
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