With high hopes: women contract surgeons in World War I

Minerva: Quarterly Report on Women and the Military, Summer, 2002 by Mercedes Graf

(16) For more on Civil War women soldiers see: Elizabeth Leonard, All the Daring of the Soldier: Women of the Civil War Armies (New York: 1999); DeAnne Blanton, "Women Soldiers of the Civil War," Prologue, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington DC, 1992. Clara Barton's biographer reported that more than anything, she wanted to be a Union soldier so she could fight for her country. See Stephen B. Oates, A Woman of Valor, Clara Barton and the Civil War (New York: 1994), 8. For description of the war-work of military nurses, see the following: Philip A. Kalisch and Margaret Scobey, "Female Nurses in American Wars: Helplessness Suspended for the Duration," Armed Forces and Society, vol. 9, no. 2, Winter 1983, 215-244; Mary T. Sarnecky, "A History of Volunteerism and Patriotism in the Army Nurse Corps," Military Medicine, vol. 54, 1989, 358-364.

(17) Dr. Elizabeth Van Cortland Hocker, "The Personal Experience of a Contract Surgeon in the United States Army," MWJ, vol. 49, no. 1, January 1942, 9. Also see Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) 10 (July 1955), 222.

(18) Dr. Jean C. Mendenhall, another contract surgeon reported: "I so enjoyed my war service that even after 25 years I would gladly repeat it," Her account in MWJ, vol. 50, no. 6, June 1943, 161. Civil War accounts also indicate that war could be invigorating for some nurses. In a letter to her sister, Amanda Stearns wrote: "This life is one of constant interest and excitement," and Amy M. Bradley affirmed, "the sick soldiers' needs energized her." See Amanda Steams, The Lady Nurse of Ward E (1909), 31; Diane Cobb Cashman, Headstrong, the Biography of Amy Morris Bradley (1990), 104.

(19) Dr. Frances E. Haines, "Army Service," MWJ, vol. 49, no. 8, August 1942, 239. See her file (1882-1966) in the Reference Collection, Rush-Presbyterian--St. Luke's Medical Center Archives; History of Medicine and Surgery and Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago (Chicago: 1922), 553 (includes photo).

(20) Dr. Isabel Gray from St. Louis, Missouri, was also appointed anesthetist with the army. She served at the base hospital at Ft. Grant. See MWJ, vol. 50, no. 7, July 1943, 183.

(21) Her experiences mirror those of other women doctors in the Civil War who knew how to solicit and utilize male support. See Mercedes Graf, "Against All Odds: Women Doctors in the Civil War," Civil War Women's Journal, summer 2002.

(22) "Kate B. Karpeles," MWJ, vol. 46, no. 3, March 1939, 91; ibid., vol. 48, no. 9, September 1941, 187.

(23) See Richard Harrison Shryock, "Women in American Medicine," JAMWA, September 1950, 378. He pointed out that there was great opposition to women physicians in America, most likely because their entrance was associated with a strong feminist movement. This aroused resistance of like intensity among many women as well as men.

(24) A similar situation occurred with Louise de Schweinitz who was also a graduate of Johns Hopkins. She applied to three Boston hospitals and was turned down by all of them because she was a woman. See her "Oral Interview," 34-35, Special Collections, MCP Hahnemann University.