First Woman to Practice Medicine in Canada
May 1,
1831 to April 29, 1903
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Emily was the first woman to practice
medicine in Canada and she is heralded as the First Lady of the Canadian women’s
right and suffrage moment.
Emily was the oldest of six
girls born into an Ontario farming family.
Emily’s mother a Quaker encouraged her daughters to expect equality with
men. Emily received the best education
possible at a co-educational school Quaker school in Providence Rhode Island.
Emily was 15 years old when she
started teaching in a one room school house.
After seven years Emily decided
to go to University however her application to Victoria College in Cobourg
Ontario was denied because she was a woman.
Undaunted she applied to newly founded Normal School for Upper Canada
and she graduated a year later in 1854.
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She return to teaching and
quickly found herself being promoted, becoming the first female principal in
the Upper Canada School District.
She married John Stowe in 1856 and
when John developed tuberculosis Emily turned to homeopathic medicine that her
mother used. Needing to know more she
applied to the Toronto School of Medicine and in 1865 she was told that women
were not accepted and never would be.
Not a woman to accept arbitrary limits being set for her she applied to the
school for homeopathic medicine, Medical College of Women in New York and
graduated in the same year.
Returning to Canada she set up
her medical practice becoming the first woman to practice medicine in Canada. Emily wrote and lectured exclusively on
issues pertaining to women’s health. She
was so inexhaustible in her work for women’s health that in 1870 she was
invited to attend the Toronto School of Medicine only a short 5 years after she
had been summarily refused entrance.
Emily either failed or refused
to take the final written and oral examinations there are differing historical
reports on this fact. However there is
no ambiguity in the historical records about to the harassment and ridicule that
she had to endure while at medical school.
Emily
returned to practicing homeopathic medicine and on July 16, 1880 the College of
Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario bestowed on Emily a license to practice
medicine in Ontario, 30 years after she started practicing medicine.
In her
work for women’s rights Emily:
- founded the Toronto Women’s Literary Club that later became the Canadian Women’s Suffrage Association, which lead to the establishment of the Ontario Medical College for Women
- was the first president of the Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association a position she held until her death
Emily
died in 1903, 14 years before women were granted the right to vote.
Emily
Howard (Jennings) Stowe is a woman of history.
As parents it is important that we remember and talk about the courage
and tenacity of the women who opened up the opportunities that women benefit from
today. Let’s continue to tell Emily’s
story to our children providing them powerful examples of social change.
Grandma Snyder
© 2013-2014 twosnydergirls
Articles
used in preparing this post.
Feldberg, G. (1994). JENNINGS, EMILY HOWARD.
Retrieved from Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 13:
http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/jennings_emily_howard_13E.html
Library and Archives Canada. (2014). Dr. Emily Howard
Stowe. Retrieved from Library and Archives Canada:
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/physicians/030002-2500-e.html
Phototheque Homeopathique. (2001). Dr Emily Howard
Jennings Stowe. Retrieved from Phototheque Homeopathique:
http://www.homeoint.org/photo/s2/stowe.htm
Wikipedia. (2014). Emily Stowe. Retrieved from
Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Stowe
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