WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH – A 2021 TRIBUTE
Hello everyone and welcome back to another FACTUAL FRIDAY. In honor of WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH, we’re going to profile three more women this week whose accomplishments helped form the foundation for medicine and healthcare in the world today.
ELIZA ANN GRIER
In the middle of the Civil War in 1864, Eliza Ann Grier was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, to Emily and George Washington Grier. Although she was born into slavery, the end of the War brought new opportunities for all African Americans, including the opportunity to attend school and seek an education.
At the age of twenty, Eliza Ann enrolled in the Normal Department at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee working her way through school by juggling several different jobs. She also involved herself with social change in the South and served as the President of the Young Ladies Lyceum in 1890.
Graduating from Fisk in 1891, Eliza Ann began teaching at the Haines Normal and Industrial Institute and was later accepted to the Woman’s Medical College in Pennsylvania. She became one of a handful of African American female physicians in America and made history when she became the first African American woman to be granted a license to practice medicine in Georgia.
Eliza Ann devoted her practice to improving the health and hygiene standards for African Americans in the rural South while also teaching at the Hospital and Training School for Nurses in Charleston, South Carolina. She also was among the 200 attendees of the Tuskegee Negro Conference in 1901 – just one year before her death.
ELIZABETH BLACKWELL
Born in 1821, Elizabeth Blackwell grew up in the United States and began her professional career as a teacher. But when a life-long friend of Elizabeth’s became terminally ill and told Elizabeth there was no female doctor in whom she could confide, Elizabeth decided to fill the void.
For a woman, becoming a doctor in the 1800s was not an easy one. Elizabeth joined a handful of other women in independent study until she was finally accepted into Geneva Medical College in upstate New York.
As the only female student, however, her acceptance caused uproar in the community. Not believing women were qualified to receive a formal education in medicine, her fellow students considered her acceptance an administrative mistake and a practical joke.
In spite of being ostracized by educators, patients and students alike, Elizabeth wrote her Doctoral Thesis on typhus fever and graduated first in her class in 1849 – becoming the first woman medical doctor in America.
A champion of women, Elizabeth opened the New York Dispensary for Poor Women and Children in 1855, the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children in 1857 and helped establish the U.S. Sanitary Commission under the auspices of President Abraham Lincoln in 1861.
ROSALIND FRANKLIN
Credited with discovering the “secret of life,” the scientific accomplishments of Rosalind Franklin laid the foundation for modern medicine and healthcare throughout the world.
Born in 1920 London, Rosalind knew from an early age she wanted to be a scientist. Her education included years at several schools and universities, including Newnham College in Cambridge from which she received her Bachelor’s Degree in chemistry.
While working as a research associate at King’s College London, Rosalind made an amazing discovery. She photographed DNA and realized there were two different kinds. And, it was one of these photographs that become famous as the critical evidence in identifying the structure of DNA.
Unfortunately, when Rosalind’s work and photographs were given without her permission to James Watson and Francis Crick, it was they who received the credit for cracking the DNA code and awarded a Nobel Prize for the work – not Rosalind.
Without complaint, criticism or confrontation, Rosalind turned her attention to other sciences and published 17 papers on viruses, which laid the foundation for structural virology. She died prematurely at the age of 37 from ovarian cancer, but left a scientific legacy that made modern medicine and healthcare today possible.
Thank you, Ladies, for your contributions and accomplishments that helped define and establish proper healthcare in the world today. You inspire us all to continue your work in bringing medicine and technology equally to all the world’s populations who require care, attention and healing knowledge.
Thank you everyone as well for joining me and happy WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH! Until next time, stay SAFE, stay in GOOD HEALTH, and . . .
TAKE THE COURSE AND TAKE CHARGE!
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