Mary Edwards Walker-Isabella
Female Surgeon In the 1800s
It all started in 1832
- On November 26, 1832
- Born on a farm
- In Oswego, New York
- She was the youngest daughter of 4 sisters and 1 brother
- Alvah and Vesta Whitcomb Walker are her parents
As a child
- Attended a local school ran by her parents
- Continued at a seminary* in Fulton, New York
- Left in 1852 to teach
- Within two within two years, she decided to become a doctor
Becoming a female In Surgeon in the 1800s
- She enrolled in Syracuse Medical College in 1853
- Graduated in 1855
- Practiced in Columbus briefly then moved to Rome, New York
- Married Albert Miller and divorced in 1869
Fighting For Women's Rights
- Walker always felt constrained about women's fashion. So, when the "bloomer dress" (invented by Amelia Bloomer) was invented, it became a political statement for women's rights
- She attended a convention of dress-reform held in Middletown, New York
- In 1857, she was elected to serve as one of the vice-presidents of the National Dress Reform Association
When the Civil War broke out
- She tried to obtain commission of an official U.S. Army surgeon
- She returned to the nation's capital and kept trying to persuade the War Department
- Mean while, she volunteered her services in an Indiana hospital
- Walker could not afford to work without pay indefinitely, so in 1862 she left Washington and took classes at New York Hygeio-Therapeutic College
- Walker began working unofficially in a field of Virginia hospitals as a surgeon, which brought her one step to her goal
Actually becoming a Surgeon in The Civil War
- By the time Walker got her commission, the troops in her regiment were mostly in good health
- Many people believed that Walker was a Union spy but there was no good information to make that statement true
- It was around that same time she quite wearing women's clothes completely; she thought men's clothes were much more sanitary then dragging a skirt in the dirt.
Captured...
- On April 10, 1864 she was captured while riding into deep on Confederate territory alone and unarmed
- She was held in Richmond, Virginia
- Was released on August 12
- Somewhat accepting the name "surgeon in charge"
Back to Oswego, New York
- In 1890 she returned to her home in New York.
She continued to work on of women's rights
in 1917, the same year her Medal of Honor was revoked for lack of proper War Department
She died at the age of 86, alone , penniless, and remembered