BITS ABOUT COLORADO'S MEDICAL SOCIETY AND WOMEN PHYSICIANS #history #WomenDoctors

post by Doris McCraw
writing as Angela Raines

Photo property of the author

The ‘Colorado Medical Society’ formed in September 1871. Initially the organization was an all-male institution. Prior to the society's formation there had been other attempts at organizing a Medical Society in the Colorado Territory/State. In 1860 there was the ‘Jefferson Medical Society, which ended a year later as the Civil War began. In 1864 the ‘Denver Medical Society’ formed, but like its predecessor it also folded after a year. In 1868 the ‘Colorado Territorial Medical Society’ was formed, but like the others, lasted for approximately a year. In April of 1871 another attempt was made at forming a ‘Denver Medical Society’, and it is still in existence today. In 1872 the ‘Colorado Medical Society’, yet another organization,  affiliated itself with the ‘American Medical Society’. The 'American Medical Society' began in 1847. 

According to Mary deMund in her book “Women Physicians in Colorado”, women were initially were rejected for membership in these Colorado medical organizations. However,  women were not without their supporters within the organization. President W.H. Williams, president from 1876 through 1877, was a former Confederate soldier and graduate of Tulane University. Dr. Williams not only pushed for the State Board of Health to reorganize and pass laws to regulate the practice of medicine, he wanted those laws to include recognizing the ‘female practitioner’. 

Dr. Williams was also a proponent of the idea that just having a diploma saying you were a doctor, or a diploma from a questionable school was not sufficient to practice medicine. He also advocated that women should be allowed to attend medical schools. At the time Dr. Williams ideas were not as far-fetched as some may think. In 1876 the 'American Medical Association' had its first female member, a delegate from Illinois: Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson. 

Pikes Peak in summer
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While Williams ideas were initially scoffed at, the annual meeting of the 'Colorado Medical Society' in June of 1877, made a motion that women who had attended a regular school of medicine should be allowed to attend and participate in the meetings of the medical society. This resolution was tabled by a vote of ten to four. At this same meeting, it was decided that Dr. Alida Avery, one of the first female physicians in Colorado and who had been endorsed by society member Dr. McBeth, could not be admitted, as she was not a member of a local society. While not a win for Dr. Avery or other female physician, it was the beginning of a crack in the bastion of male doctors. By 1881 the state of Colorado, then just five years old, began licensing physicians. At that time both men and women were licensed equally. That same year Dr. Avery, Dr. Bates and Dr. Root were admitted to the 'Denver Medical Society'. 

By 1887, another of Dr. Williams' ideas came to fruition with the graduation of Dr. Eleanor Lawney from the Denver School of Medicine. Dr. Lawney, after graduation, was on the staff of St. Luke’s Hospital in Denver, Colorado. 

This was just the beginning of the growth of women doctors in the state of Colorado prior to 1900.

Below is a partial list of women physicians who were among those who arrived prior to 1890:

Elnora Anderson, Ellen J Bell, Flora M Betz, Mary Bradner, Henrietta L Buckner, Kate C Bushnell, Stella M Clarke, Clara a Cox, Martha E Cunningham, Emma F Drake, Sarah Edson, Dora Fugard, Ella M Gilchriest, Helen M Hannah, Mary M Hatfield, Charlotte Hock, Julia R Howe, Lizzie E Joy, Addie M Kester, Mary Glover Lowery, Harriet Leonard, Julia E Loomis, Esther B. Holmes, Julia G McNutt, Anna Marsh, Celestia D Messinger, Blanche Movre, Augusta Nelson, Mary Ogden, Kate Bardwell Peterson, Anna L Potts, Marah S Putnam, Lydia Ross, Clara B. Rowe, Sarah E Somerby, Eleanor Van Atta.

For those who would like to read more, here are two books about medicine, and women physicians in Colorado: 

“A Century of Colorado Medicine, 1871-1971.” 

" Women Physicians of Colorado" by Mary De Mund 

Of course I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my Agate Gulch novellas

Doris Gardner-McCraw

Author, Speaker, Historian-specializing in
Colorado and Women's History

Angela Raines - author: Where Love & History Meet

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