THE FIRST FEMALE PHARMACIST
March is Women’s History Month. At the University of Charleston School of Pharmacy we want to mark this month by recognizing and honoring the many women that have contributed to the success and advancement of the pharmacy profession.
According to the American Pharmacists Association (APhA), Elizabeth Gooking Greenleaf is recognized as the first female pharmacists in America. She owned an apothecary shop in Boston in 1727. She was married to Reverend Daniel Gooking, a Harvard graduate. He was a minister, physician, and apothecary. Elizabeth was the mother of 12 children. It is believed she assisted her husband in the preparation of medicines for his patients.
Susan Hayhurst was credited as the first female pharmacist in the United States. After graduating from the Woman’s Medical College of Philadelphia in 1857, Susan Hayhurst served on the College’s staff and ran its pharmaceutical department for many years. In 1883, at the age of 63, Hayhurst became the first woman to graduate from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy.
Archives at Bowling Green State University share the story of another notable female pharmacist, Ella Stewart (born in Stringtown, West Virginia). Stewart wished to attend the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Pharmacy but was met with discrimination when she was told admissions were closed. She persisted however, and although segregated from other students, she graduated with high marks passing her state exam in 1916, to become the first licensed African-American female pharmacist in Pennsylvania and one of the earliest practicing African-American female pharmacists in the country.
Susan Hayhurst
THE FIRST FEMALE ENGINEER
Nora Stanton Blatch was the daughter of Harriot Stanton Blatch and the granddaughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, both of whom were leaders of the women’s rights movement in the United States. After her family relocated to New York City, Blatch studied at Cornell University
in Ithaca, New York, where in 1905 she became the first woman in the
United States to obtain a degree in civil engineering; the same year,
she became the first woman to be admitted as a member (with junior
status) of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). She worked
for the American Bridge Company in 1905–06 and for the New York City
Board of Water Supply. She also took courses in electricity and
mathematics at Columbia University so that she could work as a laboratory assistant to Lee De Forest, inventor of the radio vacuum tube, whom she married in 1908. Blatch worked for her husband’s company in New Jersey until 1909, when they were separated (they divorced in 1912).
After
returning to New York City, Blatch worked as an assistant engineer and
chief draftsman at the Radley Steel Construction Company (1909–12) and
for several years as an assistant engineer for the New York Public
Service Commission (from 1912). She began working part-time in 1914 as
an architect and developer on Long Island. In 1916 she gained notoriety
when she filed a lawsuit against the ASCE, which had terminated Blatch’s
membership when her age passed the limit for junior status; she failed
to win reinstatement through the court.
In addition to her work in civil engineering, Blatch devoted her time to the woman suffrage movement. While studying at Cornell she had founded a suffrage
club, and from 1909 to 1917 she campaigned heavily for the cause in New
York. She became the president of the Women’s Political Union in 1915,
succeeding her mother, and edited the organization’s Women’s Political World. She subsequently participated in the efforts of the National Woman’s Party for a federal Equal Rights Amendment.
Nora Stanton Blatch
THE FIRST FEMALE DOCTOR
Elizabeth Blackwell (3 February 1821 – 31 May 1910) was a British-born physician, notable as the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, as well as the first woman on the UK Medical Register. She was the first woman to graduate from medical school, a pioneer in promoting the education of women in medicine in the United States, and a social and moral reformer in both the United States and in the United Kingdom. Her sister Emily was the third woman in the US to get a medical degree.
Elizabeth Blackwell
FIRST FEMALE LAWYER
Arabella Mansfield (May 23, 1846 – August 1, 1911), born Belle Aurelia Babb, became the first female lawyer in the United States in 1869, admitted to the Iowa bar; she made her career as a college educator and administrator. Despite an Iowa state law restricting the bar exam to males, Mansfield had taken it and earned high scores. Shortly after her court challenge, Iowa amended its licensing statute and became the first state to accept women and minorities into its bar.
During her career, Mansfield worked primarily as an educator and activist, teaching at Iowa Wesleyan College and DePauw University. At the latter, she also became a university administrator, serving successively as dean in the 1890s of two different schools.
Arabella Mansfield
THE FIRST FEMALE PRIME MINISTER
Sirimavo Bandaranaike, who became the world's first woman prime minister when she was elected head of Sri Lanka's government four decades ago, retired from office today at the age of 84.
Sirimavo Bandaranaike,
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