A Brief Timeline
4 March 1918
Dr. Ralph Pemberton, a pioneer in rheumatology, sent this telegram in March of 1918 offering Dr. Myrtelle M. Canavan work in France. At the time of this exchange, it had been over three years since Germany declared war on France, and the end of the First World War was more than eight months away.
5 March 1918
In Dr. Canavan's reply to Dr. Pemberton's telegram, dated the following day, she wrote, “I think I could manage to go in the time specified, if it appears to be the thing which means the most service.” Committed to the field of medicine, Dr. Canavan was undeterred by war.
1929
In 1929, when Lydia Dawes graduated from the Yale University School of Medicine, she was one of four women in a class of 35. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, in 2004 almost half of medical school graduates were women. From the end of the nineteenth century until the 1960s, less than 5% of physicians were women. The American Medical Association predicts that by 2010, 30% of physicians in the United States will be women.
22 September 1940
What starts out as a collegial request for information on an “interesting case of a little asthma patient”, turns into an interesting account of life in London shortly after Germany began bombing the city during World War II. Only two years earlier, Anna Freud and her father, Sigmund had fled Vienna. Freud wrote the following, “So you probably think that we Londoners have other things to worry about now than papers and journals and it is quite true that we do. But there is very little one can do about guns and bombs except stick it out….Only in the early morning hours you sometimes hear people grumble because we all sleep in our shoes and not too deeply.”
1960s
The American Medical Women’s Association was founded in 1915 by Dr. Bertha Van Hoosen. Its stated mission is to advance women in medicine and improve women's health by providing and developing leadership, advocacy, education, expertise, mentoring, and strategic alliances on the local, national, and international level. Today, it has a membership of 10,000 women physicians and medical students.
Click on the image to the left to view another 1960s AMWA pamphlet cover.