Could Catharine Macfarlane's work have lengthened Ada Lovelace's life?

One more post in honor of Ada Lovelace Day, who connects to many women in many different ways. I’m connecting Ada with Dr. Catherine Macfarlane. Had Ada been born a bit later, or Catherine Macfarlane earlier, Ada’s life may have lasted longer than her short 36 years.

Ada Lovelace died fairly young of cancer, in 1852. Some sources say uterine cancer specifically and some say she was bled to death in treating her illness.

The same year of Ada’s death, when women had few options for medical training, the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania (later Woman’s Med) graduated its first class of eight women physicians. Its 46th class of women physicians graduated in 1898 and included Catherine Macfarlane.

Class of 1898, Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (unfortunately Macfarlane is missing from the photograph).

Macfarlane practiced and taught obstetrics and gynecology in Philadelphia and in time turned to research. Her work led to a theory that regular examination of women in apparent good health would be the best method to detect cancer in its early stages when it was most treatable. Initially, her theories were not popular and she had little support for her research.

In 1938 she co-founded the Cancer Control Research Project at Woman’s Med where women patients came in for regular pelvic examinations. The clinic was planned to run for five years but ultimately covered a fifteen-year period, providing data from over one thousand women. The project’s 1953 findings supported Macfarlane’s theory and indicated that regular exams could help detect cancer of the uterus early on. Macfarlane then helped establish the first uterine cancer screening in Philadelphia, one of the earliest programs in the country.

Drs. Catharine Macfarlane and Margaret Sturgis in the Cancer Prevention Clinic, 1953.

Had Catherine Macfarlane been born earlier, would her work have changed the outcome of Ada Lovelace’s illness? In Lovelace’s era, women had almost no support for studying medicine; even in Macfarlane’s time, she was discouraged in pursuing her research. However, perhaps Lovelace’s passion and interest fanned the development of schools educating women, attitudes about women’s health, and ultimately, Macfarlane’s groundbreaking work in early cancer detection.

Catharine Macfarlane and Frank Hartman in front of cancer poster.

Ada Lovelace Day: A Visit from Marie Curie

In honor of Ada Lovelace Day, we look back at May 23, 1921, when the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania hosted a distinguished visitor – Marie Curie.

Dean Martha Tracy (herself a WMC alumna, class of 1904) spoke at the occasion:

"…it is singularly appropriate that the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, firm in its hard-won position in the first rank of American medical schools, should greet with profound sympathy and due reverence this woman citizen of a fellow-republic who has likewise won through years of self-sacrificing devotion to research her deserved position as the foremost of living scientists."

Curie was granted an honorary degree – but she herself was absent on that day due to illness (only the year before, she had begun to experience symptoms caused by exposure to radioactivity). In her place, her daughter Irène Curie accepted the honor; Mme. Curie recovered the next day, and a student took a photograph of her with Dr. Tracy to document her visit to the College.

Of course, the visit was not simply a social call – Mme. Curie was on a fundraising tour. Through a campaign organized by Marie 'Missy' Mattingly Meloney, editor of The Delineator, a popular women's magazine, more than $100,000 was 'raised by women' and Mme. Curie was presented with a gram of radium by President Harding 'on behalf of the women of America.'

The Medical Woman's Journal also documented the endeavor it described the lack of radium in post-war France and Mme. Curie's financial position:

"Madame Curie is a teacher of science and she has a teacher's salary. She is one of the richest women in the world in scientific lore, but she has given the fruits of her labor to her laboratory. So she could not afford to travel westward."

In a later issue, Madame Curie's trip and the overall fundraising effort were described in an editorial as 'Women's Gift to a Woman for the Benefit of Mankind' - it went on to note that:

"Every progressive step taken by women has been secured by fighting against custom and prejudice; it has been a continual revolt against the established order. That is the reason women make such good revolutionists."

For thousands of other blog posts on women in science and technology, check out Finding Ada - and for more on the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, follow us on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!

From the Collections: Constant Diversity?

The Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania had a long tradition of diversity; in addition to opening the doors to a formal medical education to American women of many backgrounds, including a former slave like Dr. Eliza Grier, it also helped to educate women from around the world - and that's back when it was such an usual move that international students made headlines, just for coming. In 1885, there were three such 'exotic' women attending WMC at the same time - Dr. Anandibai Joshee, class of 1886, who was the first Indian woman to earn an MD; Japan's Dr. Kei Okami, class of 1889, and Dr. Sabat Islambooly (yes, it's a typo on the caption - and a very old one), class of 1890, from Syria - so naturally, a photograph was taken to honor the occasion:


By 1904, the College could boast alumnae hailing from '...Canada...Jamaica, Brazil, England, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Russia, Syria, India, China, Japan, Burmah, Australia, and the Congo Free State. Its living alumnae number about a thousand, and are found in nearly every part of the American republic and in many foreign countries, among them Egypt, India, China, Japan, Persia and Korea.'


Indeed, in the early twentieth century, the press loved nothing more than featuring women medical students from around the world in their native costumes - this example is from 1928 (although perhaps what is more interesting is that as late as 1928, a newspaper with a general readership could make a pop culture allusion to Gilbert & Sullivan and have it understood):


While a commitment to diversity waxed and waned throughout the years, it is interesting to note that it was strong in a very public way, at a time when it was not necessarily a popular stance. At the height of the Second World War, WMC admitted students from Japanese internment camps, although it is clear from a few not-so-subtle hints in the Faculty Minutes that not everyone was happy about their presence - one of them was nearly forced out on several occasions, and made to repeat work - all while being closely monitored.

But even within the wartime Japanese-American community at WMC (admittedly, a very small one), there was no single path that defined their experiences. Dr. Toshiko Toyota began her studies with the class of 1943, but the resulting chaos surrounding some Japanese-American students (and not a little suspicion from someone in the faculty - it seems from existing records that her time as a student was made as difficult at possible) delayed her schoolwork and pushed her into the class of 1944.

By contrast, Dr. Emma Hatayama, class of 1945, started at WMC in 1941; she had been advised as an undergrad to apply to east coast medical schools because of the increasing suspicion with which Japanese-Americans were viewed in the west, even prior to 1941 - but according to her oral history, she managed to avoid many of the tribulations other Japanese-American students suffered, largely by being in the right place at the right time - as she started her medical education on the east coast prior to the US entering the war, she was not subject to the restrictions placed on others.

Dr. Mary Sakaguchi Oda, class of 1946, was the sole Japanese-American student in her class; she was in medical school at UC Berkeley when war broke out; a California native, she was sent with her family to Manazar War Relocation Center in 1942, where Ansel Adams them (and where they suffered a number of family tragedies in 1944). After graduation, she returned to California to practice medicine.

Dr. Ruby Inouye, from Seattle, had been a pre-med student at the University of Washington in 1941; after the attack on Pearl Harbor, she found herself in the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho with her family. In 1943, she was able to transfer to the University of Texas to complete her undergraduate education - while her family stayed behind in the camp. Organizations such as the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council worked to find places for Japanese-American college students at universities outside the 'restricted area' - and families who would house and 'monitor' them as required by the terms of their release from the camps. She arrived at WMC in 1944.

But Dr. Inouye was not the only Japanese-American student accepted in 1944 - Dr. Kazuko Ono (later Bill, whose family was in an internment camp in their home state of California, and whose education had been similarly interrupted) started at the College the same year. They are pictured together here in a College event from 1947:


In a class of fewer than 35 students, two who required considerable 'extra' administrative work certainly stood out - and it is interesting that there is no record of any Japanese-American student coming across discrimination from the faculty after Dr. Toyota's experience.

It's not clear whether she was simply the victim of bad timing or a particular individual with a grudge - but she and her fellow Japanese-American students went on to successful careers after graduation, although some continued to face discrimination in the years immediately following the war; but whether that was down to racism or sexism (or both) is another question entirely.

From the Collections: Harriet

She became famous at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, generations of medical students consider her part of their alma mater(s) and she's even been considered an off-the-beaten-track tourist attraction - but who was 'Harriet?'

Hahnemann Medical College in the 1880s was still very much a homeopathic institution - but that did not mean its professors overlooked basics such as anatomy. Enter Dr. Rufus B. Weaver, Professor of Anatomy. Weaver was an 1865 graduate of Penn Medical College, a institution that lasted from 1853-1880, and also known as the Penn Medical University - incidentally, it was co-ed from the start, as were a few other eclectic medical schools of the era. It was a purely homeopathic school which shared a founder with Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (although a few early graduates later became homeopaths, teaching at Woman's Med was always allopathic) in Dr. Joseph Longshore.

Weaver joined the Hahnemann faculty in 1869, first as a 'demonstrator' of Anatomy ('demonstrator' was a common job title for medical school faculty members in the nineteenth century), and later as a full professor. At some point during his career there in the 1880s, he crossed paths with Harriet Cole, an African-American cleaner at the College (you can find her described in more colorful fashion, as it were, by Time Magazine in the 1930s). When she died of tuberculosis in 1888, she willed her body to the College (although it's equally possible that there was some opportunism at work on Weaver's part). He set about dissecting her nervous system, a process that took him over five months of full-time work, and mounted it for display. While the intent was to employ Harriet (or, more accurately, what was left of her) as a teaching aid, the results were considered so tremendous that she was later submitted for display at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, winning a number of prizes.

Harriet returned to Hahnemann as first 'worked' as a teaching tool, and later as a museum piece; restored by Hahnemann-trained cardiologist Dr. George Geckeler in the 1960s, she became part of the fabric of the institution and greeted medical students at Hahnemann's Center City Philadelphia campus - even through mergers and related administrative upheavals.

Harriet remained in Center City until a recent renovation to the Hahnemann Library - she moved to Drexel University College of Medicine's Queen Lane campus in 2008. While she is no longer part of the curriculum, Harriet still oversees current medical students; she is posted just outside the bookstore in the Student Activities Center.

While some who see Harriet in passing do not realize she was part of a real person, Weaver's groundbreaking work with 'Harriet' continues to be referenced in medical journals - even as recently as 2005. While we know very little about Harriet Cole's life, hopefully this sheds a little light on someone who made Weaver's scientific efforts a success - and who deserves more than a brief footnote in his biography.

And...We're In!

Apologies for the lack of updates, but the move has been something of a time killer. The good news is that we have been comfortably ensconced in the new building for a month now, and while we have yet to get absolutely everything moved in from our off-site storage (both locally-housed and at Iron Mountain), we are more or less up and running. Here are a few things we learned during this most recent move:

1. New buildings can be dustier than 'old' archives
   The new compact shelving (left, with your cruise directors posed by photographer Dan Burke) is wonderful, but we had to wipe it down with old t-shirts before moving in the first portion of our holdings. Then there was a bit more construction work done which added yet more dust - but luckily, it seems this layer will be cleaned up by people who actually do that professionally, rather than by a few archivists.



2. New buildings mean many visitors
   While I've moved offices before, this is the first time I've experienced a nearly-daily stream of visitors coming to tour the new space. It's certainly not unpleasant to see people taking notice, but it does behoove one to keep things tidy - not always an easy prospect in this line of work!



3. New buildings have glitches
   While this is a no-brainer, the challenge has been trying to predict what those will be before they pop up - and who is responsible for fixing them when they do. So far, we've been relatively lucky and have managed to avoid any showstoppers.



4. New buildings generate 'stuff'
   Starting the day we moved in, various departments appeared with 'potentially important stuff' - the accessioning table filled up rapidly (and stayed that way).
   



5. New buildings have no impact on 'regular work'
   On-site and remote research has continued apace - we've been a bit slower in responding to requests, but we have yet to completely turn anyone away. The same is true of grant applications, College events, digital projects and the like; we may have to offer a bit more expectation management than normal, but the world does not stop for anyone - certainly not us!



6. New building t-shirts don't design themselves
   But we still hope to get around to doing that in the near future - I still have my 'I survived the Women.com server migration' shirt from the late 1990s, and it's only fair to commemorate this event in the same classic style.
   

We expect the rest of the collection to appear some time in January - and then a complex integration project will begin!

Imminent Move

We have been assigned a moving date, and, as promised, we've received a full two weeks notice. The Thanksgiving holiday will eat a chunk of that but with the help of our supporters we will pack our offices and on-site collection materials and move on Friday, December 4th.

As previously noted, we're returning to familiar ground. Our new building on the Queen Lane campus (2900 W. Queen Lane, 19129) is not far from the former Medical College of Pennsylvania Hospital, the campus built and occupied by Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1930.

Before we leave our current home at Hagerty Library we are hosting an Open House at the library on December 2, 4-6pm. Please join us to commemorate our partnership with the University Archives and celebrate our move to our new space.

Here's a peek at the new space.

Miles of aisles!

The as yet un-populated reading room.

Art shelving.

From the Collections: Women Physicians at War

We have previously taken a brief look at female doctors who served during the Civil War; today, with Veterans' Day upon us, we will examine a number of women physicians who served in twentieth-century wars.

In 1917, Dr. Bertha Van Hoosen (at that time the president of the Medical Women's National Association) established a War Service Committee; it evolved into the American Women's Hospitals (PDF finding aid). The name was chosen to reflect the good works of the Scottish Women's Hospitals, which sent teams of female doctors and nurses throughout war-ravaged Europe. Although their direct military service had been rejected by the US government, AWH doctors designed their own uniforms and sailed to Europe in 1918, establishing their first hospital in France.


Under the leadership of Dr. Esther Pohl Lovejoy, AWH established hospitals and clinics in various parts of France, Serbia and the Middle East. In 1922, AHW staff witnessed the burning of İzmir (or Smyrna, as it appears from time to time in the correspondence in the collection) and physicians including Dr. Mabel Elliott became heavily involved in treating refugees and orphans throughout Turkey, Armenia and Greece under obviously trying conditions. While most AWH doctors and nurses were never officially members of the military (a few were accepted as contract surgeons, but were not commissioned officers), their service during wartime was certainly comparable - and it laid the groundwork for the next generation.


A bill to allow female physicians full appointments in the Army and Navy Medical Corps was brought before Congress in 1943; while it makes fascinating reading in general, the testimony from Dr. Emily Dunning Barringer apparently had quite an effect on the committee, and what became known as the Sparkman Act was duly passed.


Immediately thereafter, the first woman doctor was commissioned in the Army Medical Corps; Dr. Margaret D. Craighill, dean of Women's Medical College from 1940-1946, was given leave to take up her post. After her appointment, she encouraged newly-minted women doctors to consider a military career. (A small aside - this clipping and photo detailing Dr. Craighill's 1944 WMC commencement address advice is particularly interesting, given that many Japanese-Americans were still in internment camps - and Dr. Toshiko Toyota, a native of Utah, overcame considerable adversity in her medical school career, according to notes in the Faculty Minutes - there were several attempts to have her expelled).



Dr. Craighill, in her capacity as Major Craighill, went on to survey conditions for the Women's Army Corps and recommended that air conditioning be provided as a matter of course for those stationed in hot climates; noting its success in Tehran, she said, "I do hope some of these lessons learned in the Persian Gulf will be carried out in the Pacific" (New York Times, 6/24/45).


Dr. Bernice R. Walters (WMC 1936) was the first woman doctor assigned to shipboard duty in the US Navy. She served aboard the USS Consolation, which was chiefly stationed off the Korean coast, beginning in 1950, but had actually joined the Naval Reserve in 1943. Of her initial induction, she noted, "They didn't even know how to process me...I almost wound up as an apprentice seaman" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 11/23/52).


Our collections in this area are some of our most heavily-used by researchers, and yet the role of women doctors in the military and at war seems little-known to the general public; we hope future research and a few upcoming publications will help to correct that deficit.