Dr.
Mary
Edwards
Walker
Born November 26, 1832
in Oswego, New York
Daughter of
Alvah Walker and
Vesta Whitcomb
Sister of
Vesta X, Alvah Walker, Aurora Borealis, Luna Walker and Cynthia Walker
Wife of
Albert Miller
(Married in
Rome,New York; 1856 to 1869)
Died February 21, 1919
in Oswego, New York
About Mary Walker
Mary Walker was born in 1832 in Oswego, New York, the daughter of Alvah and Vesta Walker.
Mary was the youngest of five daughters and had one younger brother named Alvah. Her father was a carpenter-farmer and abolitionist who believed strongly in education and equality for his five daughters and son.
Mary Walker worked on her family farm as a child. She did not wear women's clothing during farm labor, because she considered them too restricting. She was well educated and two of her older sisters and herself graduated from Falley Seminary in Fulton, New York.
Her and her sisters went on to become teachers, with Mary teaching in Minetto, New York in 1852. But early on she had shown an interest in her father’s medical books, so was encouraged to pursue becoming a doctor. While teaching she saved money and, in December 1853, enrolled in Syracuse Medical College, the first medical school in the U.S. and one that equally accepted men and women.
After three 13-week semesters of medical training, in which she paid $55 each semester, Mary graduated in June 1855. At 21 years old, she was the only woman in her class, and the second female doctor in the nation.
She was a supporter of women's rights and passionately spoke about dress reform. In her wedding in 1856 to Albert Miller, a physician, Mary wore trousers and a man's coat. Their wedding vows did not include anything about "obeying." And she kept her own last name.
They began a joint medical practice in Rome, New York, but many people were not ready for a woman physician so the practice was done for. The marriage ended in divorce 13 years later.
Later, Mary went to Washington and tried to join the Union Army when the Civil War broke out. She was denied a commission as a medical officer but she volunteered anyway and served as an acting assistant surgeon.
As a volunteer she worked in the US Patent Office Hospital in Washington and later she worked as a field surgeon near the Union front lines for almost two years. In September 1863, Walker became an assistant surgeon in the Army of Cumberland. She made a modified uniform to wear for this job. She was then assigned to be an assistant surgeon of the 52nd Ohio Infantry.
During this assignment, people suspected that she worked as a spy. On April 10, 1864, dressed in full uniform, she accidentally walked into a group of Rebel soldiers just south of the Georgia-Tennessee border. Their commanding officer, General Daniel Harvey Hill, ordered her sent to Richmond as a prisoner for four months until she was exchanged, with two dozen other Union doctors, for 17 Confederate surgeons. She was released back to the 52nd Ohio as a contract surgeon but spent the rest of the war practicing at a Louisville female prison and an orphan's asylum in Tennessee.
On November 11, 1865, President Johnson signed a bill to present Dr. Mary Edwards Walker with the Congressional Medal of Honor for Meritorious Service, in order to recognize her contributions to the war effort without awarding her any army commission. She was the only woman ever to receive the Medal of Honor, her country's highest military award.
In 1917, her Medal of Honor, along with the medals of 910 other medals were taken away when Congress revised the Medal of Honor standards to include only "actual combat with an enemy." She refused to give back her Medal of Honor, wearing it every day until her death in 1919.
After the war, Mary Edwards Walker became a writer and lecturer. In 1857, Mary began writing to Sybil, a publication of Dr. Lydia Sayer Hasbrouck. She wrote that womens' attire was a barrier to their good health and productive labor.
Mary's published opinions were printed in the program of the second Reform-Dress Association Convention in Syracuse and, in December, she lectured on it in Black River, New York. In 1878, Mary wrote her second book, "Unmasked, and The Science of Immortality."
She died in the Town of Oswego, the same place that she was born. She died on February 21, 1919 in the home of a neighbor and is buried in the Rural Cemetery on the Cemetery Road. Her death was one year before the Nineteenth Amendment was accepted in Congress which was the equality of women and men the equal right to vote.
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On October 29,
Shanice Aparicio
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