As you may know, we hosted a Women's History Month Symposium on March 1. I am going to share each of the speakers' talks, starting with mine.
In 1885, the Medical & Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland,
now known as MedChi, changed its constitution from “gentlemen” members to “persons” because of the
number of Blacks and women who were being nominated for membership.
Within 15
years, at least 13 women had become members. This pre-dated the admission of
women to Johns Hopkins School of Medicine by seven years, to the AMA by almost
30 years, and to the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine by more than
35 years.
In 1886,
MedChi welcomed its first woman member, Dr. Amanda Taylor Norris. In addition
to being the first woman member, Dr. Norris was the first woman with a medical
degree to practice in Baltimore.
She
graduated in 1880 from the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania and returned
to Baltimore where she began her career. The Baltimore Medical College, a small
school, offered her a faculty position as a demonstrator of anatomy, which she
readily accepted.
As with
most physicians of the day, Dr. Norris was a generalist. She taught materia
medica, or the pharmaceutical aspects of medicine, practical obstetrics and
gynecology, and throat and chest medicine. Dr. Norris was also the physician to several
women’s clinics including the Female House of Refuge and the Evening Dispensary
for Women and Girls, which I will talk about shortly.
Before 1911, there were eleven medical schools in Baltimore.
That changed when the Flexner Report was published. This compared all medical
schools in the US to Johns Hopkins, a new and well-funded medical school. Most
other med schools were small and ill-funded and paled in comparison.
One of
these smaller schools was the Women’s Medical College in Baltimore, founded in
1882. The two
main founders, as well as the others, were all members of the Medical &
Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, known then as the Faculty, and at the time,
99% male. They wanted a medical school for women that was equal to that of
other medical schools.
Originally
located on Eutaw Street, the college moved several times in its nearly 30-year
lifetime. It
was one of the earliest schools to require either a college diploma or an
entrance exam to attend. Because of the scarcity of women’s medical schools, women from around the world
attended the college.
The most
famous alumna was Claribel Cone, who, along with her sister, Etta, established
what is now known as the Cone Collection of Modern Art, housed at the Baltimore
Museum of Art, and worth more than one billion dollars.
The
Women’s Medical College closed in 1910, mainly due to lack of an endowment to
keep it going. In the Flexner report, it was stated that the laboratories were
scrupulously well-kept and showed a desire to do the best possible with meager
resources. It also mentions the Women’s Dispensary at the College. The College
would probably have closed regardless, due to paring down of medical schools
after the Flexner report.
From the beginning, women were admitted to the Johns Hopkins
School of Medicine. The men at Hopkins hated the fact that women were students, but since
philanthropist,
Mary Garrett had given the school the funds to open, but with
the provision that women had to be admitted, there was no choice.
The most
well-known early female student was Gertrude Stein, who actually never
graduated. The
prevailing thought process at the time was that women would take up space at
the school, only to leave and get married, and never practice.
The
first woman to graduate from Hopkins was Mary Packard, who had two other women
in her class, neither of whom graduated. To add insult to injury, she was left
out of the class photo!
The University of Maryland’s School of Medicine did not admit
women until 1919, just before women received the right to vote. There had been
a shortage of physicians for a few years due to World War One, and so it was
more of a necessity that women were admitted to medical schools.
As I mentioned, The Evening
Dispensary for Working Women and Girls provided outpatient medical care and
advice to women, and was almost exclusively staffed by women physicians. The idea for a women’s dispensary originated at the
Women’s Medical College of Philadelphia. The
Dispensary was especially important for two reasons: women could not leave work
in the daytime to go to a doctor’s appointment; and
many women disliked having a male physician.
The Dispensary also provided
an opportunity for female medical students to gain practical experience. In addition to providing free care for poor women, it
also provided a clean milk distribution system for sick babies, social
services, a visiting nurse program, and public baths.
The women who founded the Baltimore’s
Evening Dispensary were mainly graduates of the Women’s Medical College, both
here in Baltimore and in Philadelphia. Many of them were also among the
Faculty’s earliest female members.Dr. Lillian Welsh and Dr. Mary Sherwood,
both on the faculty of Goucher College, were two of the most well-known
members. Contemporary accounts note that these early
physicians were friends with the Suffragettes and were proponents of women on
bicycles.
In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, there
were a number of hospitals for women and children.
The ones
for women in the late stages of pregnancy were called “lying-in” hospitals. The
Maryland Nursery & Child’s Hospital was also for foundlings.Some of the hospitals had very descriptive names, including this one: St. Vincent’s Infant Asylum for Unfortunate Women Needing Reformatory Influences and the Care of a Lying-in Hospital. At the
time, asylum had a different meaning than it does now. It was a benevolent
institution affording shelter and support to the afflicted, the unfortunate, or
destitute.
There one additional woman I’d like to
briefly talk about: Marcia Crocker Noyes.
She was not a physician, but the
librarian at MedChi for 50 years. She was recruited by Dr. William Osler, one
of the “Big Four” at Hopkins in 1896. She was required to live in the building, so
that she could find books for physicians at any hour of the day or night. She
and Dr. Osler founded the Medical Library Association and its highest award is
given in her name.
In 1904, Marcia became the Executive
Secretary of the “Faculty” and oversaw all of the numerous activities in the
buildings and for the members. She was highly respected by the physicians of
the day. She owned her own car in the mid 19-teens, and was a member
of the suffrage movement, which you just learned about. She
traveled extensively in the US and abroad. She owned a “Camp” in the
Adirondacks and would sail to England to visit her friend, now-Sir William
Osler.
In 1946, Marcia became ill, so the
physicians advanced her 50th anniversary party by a few months.
She died
just a few days after her 50th anniversary in November of 1946 and is
buried at Greenmount Cemetery. She remains here in the building as our friend and sometime
companion.
Thank you so
much.
