This volume examines the wide-ranging careers and diverse lives of American women physicians, shedding light on their struggles for equality, professional accomplishment, and personal happiness over the past 150 years.
Leading scholars in the history of medicine chronicle the trials and triumphs of such extraordinary women as Marie Zakrzewska, one of the first female medical graduates in the United States and founder of the New England Hospital for Women and Children; Mary S. Calderone, the courageous and controversial medical director of Planned Parenthood in the mid-twentieth century; and Esther Pohl Lovejoy, who risked her life to bring medical aid and supplies to countries experiencing war, famine, and other catastrophes.
Illuminating the ethnic, political, and personal diversity of women physicians, the book reveals them as dedicated professionals who grapple with obstacles and embrace challenges, even as they negotiate their own health, sexuality, and body images, the needs of their patients, and the rise of the women's health movement.
The Johns Hopkins University Press
— Laura Ettinger
— Kimberly Jensen
The book would certainly be helpful for medical historians, of course, but also for any person—woman or man—interested in the past, present, and future role of women in medicine. Readers are rewarded with impressive scholarship and exhaustive, essay-specific bibliographies.
Readers will find much to admire in this book. The individual essays, while diverse, are uniformly well written, well-researched, and impressively documented... Highly recommended.
— Barbara F. Atkinson
— Susan E. Cayleff
— H. Hughes Evans
This lively collection of essays will no doubt be enlightening to the current generation of medical students, historians, and scholars.
Stellar edited collection... Read this book and assign it for class: it succeeds in leaving us informed,inspired, and amazed... It is provocative, deconstructs binaries, shows the personal tolls and struggles faced by these physicians and their use of science, nutrition, professional authority, and maternity (among others) as means to challenge male medical authority and culturally constructed gendered norms.
This important volume delineates the state of the field in many aspects of the history of women physicians in the United States and points the way to the next steps in research.
This collection of essays on the history of American women physicians from the nineteenth century to the present provides the latest, state-of-the-art scholarship on the subject... Invaluable.
A valuable addition to the history of women's struggle for fulfilling careers in medicine.
Introduction New Perspectives on Women Physicians and Medicine in the United States, 1849 to the Present Ellen S. More More, Ellen S. Elizabeth Fee Fee, Elizabeth Manon Parry Parry, Manon 1
Pt. I Performing Gender, Being a Woman Physician
1 Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Nineteenth-Century Politics of Women's Health Research Carla Bittel Bittel, Carla 23
2 Maternity and the Female Body in the Writings of Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, 1829-1902 Arleen Marcia Tuchman Tuchman, Arleen Marcia 52
3 Female Patient Agency and the 1892 Trial of Dr. Mary Dixon Jones in Late Nineteenth-Century Brooklyn Regina Morantz-Sanchez Morantz-Sanchez, Regina 69
4 A Chinese Woman Doctor in Progressive Era Chicago Judy Tzu-Chun Wu Wu, Judy Tzu-Chun 89
5 Professionalism versus Sexuality in the Career of Dr. Mary Steichen Calderone, 1904-1998 Ellen S. More More, Ellen S. 113
Pt. II Challenging the Culture of Professionalism
6 The Legacy of Masculine Codes of Honor and the Admission of Women to the Medical Profession in the Nineteenth Century Robert A. Nye Nye, Robert A. 141
7 Women Physicians and the Twentieth-Century Women's Health Movement in the United States Sandra Morgen Morgen, Sandra 160
8 Narrative Forms in Our Bodies, Ourselves Susan Wells Wells, Susan 184
9 Feminists Fight the Culture of Exclusion in Medical Education, 1970-1990 Naomi Rogers Rogers, Naomi 205
Pt. III Expanding the Boundaries
10 Women Physicians and Medical Sects in Nineteenth-Century Chicago Eve Fine Fine, Eve 245
11 Ruth A. Parmelee, Esther P. Lovejoy, and the Discourse of Motherhood in Asia Minor and Greece in the Early Twentieth Century Virginia A. Metaxas Metaxas, Virginia A. 274
12 Women Physicians and a NewAgenda for College Health, 1920-1970 Heather Munro Prescott Prescott, Heather Munro 294
Conclusion: Opportunities and Obstacles for Women Physicians in the Twenty-First Century Erica Frank Frank, Erica Elizabeth Fee Fee, Elizabeth Manon Parry Parry, Manon Ellen S. More More, Ellen S. 319
Index 347
Overview
This volume examines the wide-ranging careers and diverse lives of American women physicians, shedding light on their struggles for equality, professional accomplishment, and personal happiness over the past 150 years.
Leading scholars in the history of medicine chronicle the trials and triumphs of such extraordinary women as Marie Zakrzewska, one of the first female medical graduates in the United States and founder of the New England Hospital for Women and Children; Mary S. ...