Esther Clayson's Medical School 1890-1894 -- Obstetric Manikins

I've just posted information from Esther Lovejoy's memoir of her medical school years about lectures in obstetrics on my author blog.

Thank You Lucy Davis Phillips!

One of my heroines is Lucy Davis Phillips, registrar at the University of Oregon Medical School from 1918 until just before her death in 1943. She knew that women students were making history and wanted to record it. Thanks to her work of keeping track of women students and their work after graduation we have a great deal of information on early Oregon women medical students and physicians. Davis Phillips compiled a scrapbook with notes, newspaper articles and correspondence that comprises a vital source for the biographies of medical women. She also sent out a survey in the mid-1930s to all of the women graduates for whom she could find an address and compiled the data. These records comprise the treasure-filled Lucy I. Davis Phillips Collection on Oregon Women Medical School Graduates at the Historical Collections & Archives at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. There are many Esther Lovejoy gems there and so much information about the careers of medical women graduates from Oregon.

She published a summary of her findings and a roster of graduates in Lucy I. Davis, “History of Women Graduates of Oregon Medical School,” Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting and Directory of the Alumni Association, University of Oregon Medical School (Portland: University of Oregon Alumni Association, 1937), 17-20.

Marion Reed East, M.D.,writing for the Journal of the American Medical Women's Association in 1964, recalled that Davis Phillips was "loved and respected by students and faculty alike." In addition to her work to preserve information about the lives of women students and doctors, East noted that the registrar was a strong advocate for women students. "The first unit of the new medical school building (1920) had no provision for a room where the women medical students could rest or hold a 'buzz' session," East noted. So Davis Phillips worked with librarian Bertha Hallam to get them a room of their own on Marquam Hill.

So here's to your memory, Lucy Davis Phillips: registrar, historian, advocate. The history of women in Oregon is richer because of you.

See
Marion Reed East, M.D., "Branch Five Presents . . . Friends of the Medical Students," Journal of the American Medical Women's Association 19 no. 1 (March 1964): 235.

First Portland Women's Medical Society 1891-1892

Today I've posted a discussion of the regional and national context for the first Portland Women's Medical Society at my author blog.

Viola Coe, M.D. physician and suffragist

Just posted to my author blog, a biography of Viola Mae Coe, the last of the profiles of the five physicians in the first Portland Women's Medical Society 1891-1893.

Florence King, M.D. (?-1895)

In addition to doctors Lydia Hunt King, Mae Cardwell, Helena J. Price and Viola Coe (to be profiled tomorrow) Florence King was one of the five women to be members of the original Portland women's medical society of 1891-1892. A graduate of Wooster (Ohio) University Medical School in 1879, she married homeopathic physician Samuel Lewis King. IN 1890 the Portland City Directory listed them both as practicing in their home office at 195 1st in Portland. Florence King died on May 2, 1895 in Portland, just four years after the founding of the women's medical society.

Helena J. Price, M.D.

I've just posted information about Helena J. Price, another of the five women in Portland's first all-female medical society in 1891-1892 on my author blog. As you'll see I don't know as much about her as the other women physicians I'm profiling, and I welcome any information you might have about her.

Mae Whitney Cardwell, M.D. (1853-1929)

This week I'm focusing on early women physicians and medical societies in Portland as a foundation for Esther Pohl Lovejoy's work with the Portland Medical Club as president in 1905. Another of the five women physicians who were active in the first Portland Women's Medical Society in 1891-1892 was Mae Whitney Cardwell. She received her first medical degree from the Cooper Medical School in San Francisco in 1883 and completed a second degree from Oregon's Willamette University Medical Department in 1885. She established a practice in Portland and was a "local" woman to join the Portland Women's Medical Society.

Cardwell served as a bridge between male medical societies and women physicians and was often the only woman to serve in administrative roles in these societies. She was an early member of the Oregon State Medical Society, joining after her WUMD degree in 1885 and was treasurer of the organization for ten years from 1893-1903, and later served as vice president. The Portland Medical Society, established in 1884, banned women from membership until, in 1902, she became the first woman member.

But Cardwell also supported separate women's societies. In addition to her work with the first Portland Women's Medical Society she was the she was a founder and first president of the revitalized Portland Medical Club in 1905. And, conscious of the importance of women's activities in the Oregon medical scene, Cardwell's history of Portland medical societies preserves vital chapters in the history of women and medicine in Oregon.

In addition, Cardwell worked for woman suffrage in Oregon and served as one of five vice presidents for the Portland chapter the of the College Equal Suffrage Association in 1912 campaign that won the right for Oregon women to vote. She also participated in a World War I test to claim officer status for women physicians at the Vancouver, Washington army base.

A biography of Cardwell and her image are included with the Oregon Health & Science University's exhibit in association with the Changing the Face of Medicine exhibit at http://www.ohsu.edu/library/hom/exhibits/medbios.shtml

See:

Mae H. Cardwell, “The Medical Club of Portland—Historical,” Medical Sentinel 13 no. 7 (July 1905): 222-226.

Kimberly Jensen, Mobilizing Minerva: American Women in the First World War (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008)

Cora Bagley Marrett, "Nineteenth Century Associations of Medical Women: The Beginning of a Movement," Journal of the American Medical Women's Association 32 no. 12 (December 1977): 469-474.