a biography of the day-sarah ann hackett stevenson (early physician, women's education)

[niyad]

Sarah Ann Hackett Stevenson
Pioneer Woman Physician and Medical Teacher


Dates: February 2, 1841 - August 14, 1909
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Sarah Stevenson moved to Chicago where she began to study medicine at the Woman's Hospital Medical College which had recently been founded by Mary Harris Thompson and others. After a year, she went to London for a year where she studied with Thomas Huxley at the South Kensington Science School. In London she also became friends with the feminist Emily Faithfull.

Returning to Chicago and the Woman's Hospital Medical College, Sarah Stevenson graduated with an M.D. in 1874. She began a private practice in Chicago and published Boys and Girls in Biology for high school students, based in part on Huxley's lectures she'd attended in London. In 1875 she was appointed professor of physiology and histology at the Woman's Medical College.

As late as 1871, the American Medical Association had refused to even take up the question of opening membership to women. But in 1876, when Sarah Stevenson attended the AMA convention as a delegate of the Illinois State Medical Society, her presence was accepted without significant challenge and she became the AMA's first female member.

In 1890, her position at the Medical College (now called the Woman's Medical College and after 1891, the Northwestern University Woman's Medical School) changed and Sarah Stevenson became professor of obstetrics. She served as well on staff at Provident Hospital, and was the first woman physician on staff at Cook County Hospital.
In 1880, Sarah Stevenson and Lucy Flowers founded the Illinois Training School for Nurses. She published The Physiology of Women, also in 1880. She worked for many years with Frances Willard, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and the National Temperance Hospital, which used no medications containing alcohol.
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http://womenshistory.about.com/od/physicians/a/stevenson.htm