Dr. Mary Walker became the first (and to this date, the only) woman to be
awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. She was a woman before her
time and among her many achievements she was well known for always
wearing pants. Cheryl Harness introduces us to this incredible woman
from history and shares her unconventional path to the Medal of Honor.
Harness's book serves to introduce young and old to this remarkable
woman -- a woman who has Iowa Connections.
Harness, Cheryl. Mary Walker Wears the Pants: The True Story
of the Doctor, Reformer, and Civil War Hero. Illustrated by Carlo Molinari. Albert Whitman, 2013.
Mary Edwards Walker (November 26, 1832 – February 21, 1919)
Dr.
Mary Edwards Walker was among those who worked for women's right
to vote in the years leading up to the granting of women’s suffrage. She was among the very unconventional women
of her time, one of the first American feminists, and she supported abolition,
prohibition, as well as, the right of women to vote. She was one of the first women doctors in the
country and she wore pants! She served as a Union soldier (in a modified
uniform) during the Civil War, as a doctor.
She became the only woman, to this day, to earn the the Medal of
Honor.
Mary
Edwards Walker was born in Oswego, New York.
Her mother taught school and Walker’s father was a country doctor and
farmer who encouraged education for his five daughters: Mary, Aurora, Luna,
Vesta, and Cynthia, and their one son, Alvah.
The girls’ often helped in the
fields and their parents believed that the tight corsets and otherwise
restrictive garments women generally wore in those days were unnecessary and
hampered women’s ability to move about and do what was needed. As an adult Mary
became an avid supporter of the issue of dress reform led by Amelia Bloomer. Bloomer defended the right of women to wear
Turkish pantaloons – or “bloomers” as the bloused trousers came to be
called. Eventually Mary Walker adapted
the practice of wearing full men’s evening dress to lecture on Women’s Rights.
At
the age of twenty-one (1855) Mary, graduated from Syracuse Medical College. She was the only female in her medical class
and had spent three
semesters (13 weeks each) in the study of medicine. Mary Edwards Walker is the second American
woman to earn a medical degree (the first, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell earned a
degree in 1849). The following year
(1856) Walker married a fellow physician, Albert Miller. Both bride and groom wore a suit and top hat and
Mary Walker continued to use her birth name.
The two physicians established a medical practice in Rome, NY but the
practice failed as few were ready to accept a female doctor.
The Iowa Connection
This
period of time is when Dr. Mary Edward Waker became part of Iowa’s
history. Dr.
Walker separated from her husband after just four years of marriage
(due,
reportedly, to his unfaithfulness). In 1860, Walker became an active
promoter
of dress reform but before accepting a formal role in the organization
working for reform, she wanted to finalize her divorce from Miller. New
York’s laws required a five-year waiting period. So in the summer of 1860, Walker traveled to
Iowa and stayed with a family friend in Delhi, hoping to take advantage of
Iowa’s more lenient divorce laws and to avoid New York’s waiting period. The friend, Judge Albert E. House, was a
former resident of Oswego and was willing to host her and to advise her on Iowa
law. While in Iowa she briefly attended the relatively newly established Bowen Collegiate Institute
(later Lenox College) in Hopkinton, Iowa. She protested that the college advertised
that a student could study German at their institute but when she arrived the
school had no German instructor. Dr.
Walker did attend the institute, however, until she was suspended when she
refused to quit the all-male debate society.
Many of the male members supported her efforts and her protests of
unequal rights. Her protest efforts
resulted in many supporters in the Delhi-Hopkinton community but eventually her
protests led to her full expulsion from the Institute. While she waited for her
divorce, she was privileged to work with a local physician, Dr. Cunningham. Back in New York state, a
long-time attorney friend, B.F. Chapman, learned of her efforts to obtain a
divorce under the new laws in the state of Iowa. Chapman sent her a five-page brief. The brief
detailed cases that made clear New York state would not recognize out-of-state
divorces. Walker trusted Chapman and so she returned to Rome, NY the
following summer without the divorce. That ended her physical connection to
Iowa however, in the following years there would be at least one other
connection to Iowa.
Civil War and the Medal of Honor
When
the Civil War broke out Mary Walker attempted to join the Union Army. She was denied an official role so she
volunteered in various field hospitals and positions. Eventually she was appointed to official Army
duties. She always wore two pistols on
her side, and dressed in a modified uniform – reportedly designed by a Mrs.
Littlejohn of Delhi, Iowa (Leonard 246).
She treated many soldiers and sometimes crossed Confederate lines to
treat civilians. Some suggest that
during this time she also served as a Union spy. Whatever the case, in 1864, she was captured
and held prisoner in Richmond until she, along with other Union doctors, was
exchanged for 17 Confederate surgeons.
After
her release back to the 52nd Ohio Infantry she spent the remainder
of the war practicing at a Louisville female prison and an orphan's asylum in
Tennessee. She was awarded a military
pension ($8.50, later raised to $20) but it was less than some widow’s
pensions.
On
November 11, 1865, Dr. Mary Edwards Walker was awarded the Congressional Medal
of Honor by President Andrew Johnson, in recognition of her contributions
during the war. She was the only woman
ever to receive the Medal of Honor, her country's highest military award. The award was rescinded in 1917 when the
“rules” were changed, but Dr. Walker refused to give up the medal and wore it
every day, the rest of her life. Sixty
years later, President Jimmy Carter restored the medal to her.
After
the war she continued to campaign for the right of women to vote, and entered
the political arena by becoming a candidate for Congress (1890) and for a U.S.
Senate seat (1892). She has been honored with a United States
Postage Stamp (1982) and inducted into the Seneca Falls (NY) Women’s Hall of
Fame.
Resources:
Graf, Mercedes. A Woman of Honor: Dr. Mary E. Walker and the Civil War. Thomas Publications, 2001.Harris, Sharon. Dr. Mary Walker: An American Radical, 1832-1919. Rutgers University Press, 2009.
Leonard, Elizabeth. Yankee Women: Gender Battles in the Civil War. W.W. Norton & Company, 1995.
Snyder, Charles McCool. Dr. Mary Walker: the Little Lady in Pants. Arno Press, 1974.
The History of Delaware County, Iowa: Containing a History of the County, Its Cities, Towns, &c., a Biographical Directory of Its Citizens, War Record of Its Volunteers ... History of the Northwest, History of Iowa, Map of Delaware County, Constitution of the United States. Western historical Company, 1878.
Walker, Dale L. Mary Edwards Walker: Above and Beyond. Macmillan, 2005.
(This article originally published on the blog at McBookwords:All things literacy — Authors, Books, Connections . . . (Jun 06, 2013)
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