One for the (history) books
The women’s suffrage movement actually grew out of the abolitionist movement after the Civil War…requiring constant effort extending to the 1920s to finally secure the right of women to vote in the United States.
It would take a century of protests, parades, letter-writing campaigns and imprisonment in order for all American women to enjoy all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
On August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was finally ratified, and on Nov. 2nd of that year, more than 8 million women, across the country, voted in elections for the first time.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of women had dedicated themselves to the cause of women’s suffrage, and knowing the sacrifices of these determined patriots fuels my effort to vote, not taking this right and privilege for granted.
Back in the day, our history teachers credited Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Lucrezia Mott for leading American women to revolt against the belief that the only “true” woman was a pious, submissive wife and mother concerned exclusively with home and family.
But, the other day, I discovered another woman who moved the cause ahead in her own unique way. Her name – Dr. Mary Edwards Walker. I don’t know if she’s mentioned in current U.S. history books so I’ll share a little about her here: Raised on a farm by parents who emphasized education, temperance, and abolitionism, Mary worked as a teacher before graduating with honors from Syracuse Medical School in 1855. At her wedding, where she did not vow to “obey” fellow medical student and husband Albert Miller and she wore the ladies dress reform costume – a skirt over pants.
Her ill-fated marriage ended with her husband’s infidelity, just in time for Mary to move to Washington, D.C., where she applied for – and was denied -- a military surgeon’s contract in the Union Army. Instead, she was offered a position as a nurse, which she refused.
Undaunted, Dr. Mary Walker continued to apply for a surgeon’s job while volunteering as a doctor and was mentioned in a New York Tribune report in December 1862: “Dressed in male habiliments … she can amputate a limb with the skill of an old surgeon, and administer medicine equally as well. Strange to say that, although she has frequently applied for a permanent position in the medical corps, she has never been assigned to any particular duty.”
Finally, her determination paid off. In 1864, Mary was named acting assistant surgeon to the 53rd Ohio Volunteers – an appointment the medical staff director termed “a medical monstrosity.” True to herself, Dr. Walker wore a military officer’s uniform with small modifications and carried two pistols.
Working as a field surgeon and sometime spy, Dr. Walker was captured behind enemy lines in April 1864 and incarcerated at the Confederate prison Castle Thunder for four months…until she was released through a prisoner exchange.
After the war, Mary Walker continued her efforts to reform women’s fashion and to address the unequal treatment received by women in comparison to men. She also set her sights on moving women’s suffrage ahead.
By the 1870s she had adopted the attire she would wear the rest of her life: trousers, vest, coat, and top hat. A woman set her dog on Walker and, on one occasion, she was pelted with eggs. But, in spite of ridicule and harassment, Walker continued to challenge 19thcentury gender norms.
She also argued that the pensions of wartime nurses should equal those of veterans…and, a century before the women’s liberation movement, she lobbied for women to earn equal pay for equal work, as well as recognition for their work in the home.
Today, Dr. Mary Walker remains the only woman to have received the Congressional Medal of Honor, the country’s highest award for wartime valor. In 1865, President Andrew Johnson awarded it to her along with 910 other civilians (all men) for their duty in the Civil War. Walker’s citation mentioned her service treating the sick and wounded at several battles, as well as her time as a prisoner of war.
But in 1917, a change to eligibility meant any medal not earned in “actual combat” was revoked. Not unexpectedly, Walker ignored the change and continued to wear the medal on her lapel until her death. Sixty years later, in 1977, President Jimmy Carter restored the award, which is now on display at the Pentagon.
Walker died the year before women obtained the right to vote. She was buried in the family plot in Oswego, NY’s Rural Cemetery. At her request, there was no funeral service, but as was still customary at the time, she was dressed in a black suit and laid out in a simple wood coffin covered by an American flag in the family parlor.
How did we miss studying about Dr. Mary Walker, our nation’s only female Congressional Medal of Honor winner? It’s not too late to remember her now.