Mary Edwards Walker had the bad luck to be born a century too early. Throughout her lifetime, she received severe criticism for practicing medicine and fighting to achieve equal rights for women, things we take for granted today.
Born on November 26, 1832, on the family farm in Oswego, New York, Walker’s father Alvah, a freethinker and reformist, had a profound influence on her, particularly concerning the wearing of women’s clothing. Alvah believed that the restrictive women’s fashions of the day – petticoats, corsets, etc. - inhibited their movements and capabilities.
In an age that dictated most women stayed at home, Alvah wanted – and expected – his girls to get an education and pursue a career. In December 1853, Walker did just that, enrolling in Syracuse Medical College, the first medical school in the United States that accepted both men and women. When Walker graduated in June 1855, she was the only woman in her class.
Society, however, was still unwilling to accept a female physician. Perhaps that’s why the non-traditional Walker did something traditional in 1856, when she got married to Dr. Albert Miller, another physician. If he didn’t know already, Miller quickly learned this would be a different type of relationship. At the wedding, Walker wore trousers and a coat, and informed Miller that she was keeping her own name. The couple established a joint medical practice in Rome, New York. However, people were no more ready to accept a joint practice including a woman than having a woman practice alone, which resulted in the partnership dissolving in 1859. Miller made things worse by being unfaithful, so Walker left him. The couple divorced in 1869.
Walker continued her campaign for women’s clothing reform, turning it into a health and hygiene issue. She wrote that corsets and hoop skirts picked up dirt, restricted circulation in the legs, and placed too much weight on the shoulders. Her continued outspokenness on this topic enabled her to win the election as vice-president of the National Dress Reform Association.
At the onset of the Civil War in April 1861, Walker journeyed to Washington, D.C., seeking an appointment as a surgeon in the Union Army. Although the army desperately needed trained medical personnel, tradition trumped need and they denied her request. Not one to accept any form of denial, Walker volunteered as an assistant surgeon at a hospital in the U.S. Patent Office, and despite her supervisor recommending her for a commissioned position, it was to no avail.
In December 1862, Walker was at Fredericksburg, Virginia, when the Union Army suffered a bloody defeat. Walker plunged into the medical morass, and in an era when amputations were common, Walker developed a reputation for advocating against the procedure.
Finally, in September 1863, Walker received an appointment as an assistant surgeon to the 52nd Ohio Infantry in the Army of the Cumberland based in Tennessee. She dressed in a modified version of an officer’s uniform, complete with two pistols. Predictably, some men, horrified at the prospect of a female medical officer, doubted that she knew any more about medicine than most housewives.
Besides tending to sick and wounded Union soldiers, Walker frequently journeyed into the surrounding countryside to help civilians. Today many believe that she acted as a Union spy during these times, though there is no definitive supporting evidence.
In April 1864, while on one of these trips she blundered into a group of Confederate soldiers who captured her. While imprisoned at Castle Thunder near Richmond, Virginia, she complained about the lack of grain and vegetables in the prisoner’s diet, forcing the Confederates to add these items. In August, a prisoner exchange returned her to the Union Army, and on October 5, 1864, Walker finally received her commission as an acting assistant surgeon. She was the first female surgeon commissioned in the U.S. Army.
In November 1865, Walker was the first woman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, which still holds true today.
After the war, Walker continued to battle for female dress reform and voting rights. By now, she usually wore a top hat, pants, coat, and bow tie.
In 1917, Congress revised the standards for the Medal of Honor, and tried to take Walker’s back, but she refused to return it, and wore it proudly until she died on February 21, 1919. In May 1919, just months after her death, Congress passed an amendment ratifying the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving women the right to vote, but it wasn’t until 1977 that an Army board reinstated Walker’s Medal of Honor.
This was a fitting legacy for a woman born too far ahead of her time.
Sources:
1. “American Women of Medicine” – Russell Roberts
2. www.northnet.org/stlawrenceaauw/walker.htm
3. www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/walk-mar.htm
4. www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/physicians