Mary Edwards Walker
Mary Edwards Walker (born November 26, 1832 in Oswego , New York ; † February 21, 1919 there ) was an American doctor and suffragette and so far the only woman who received the Medal of Honor , the highest military award in the United States, was awarded.
Life
Walker grew up as the daughter of a doctor with five older sisters and one younger brother on a farm. She studied medicine at Central Medical College in Syracuse (New York) from 1853 and graduated with an MD in medicine in 1855 (the only woman in her senior class and second woman with an MD degree in the USA after Elizabeth Blackwell in Geneva (New York) ). In 1856 she married her fellow student Albert Miller (but kept her own name as part of the double name). Both opened a group practice in Rome, New York , which did not go well. She went back to college (Bowen Collegiate Institute) for a short time, but had to leave because she did not want to leave the previously all-male student debating club. She had separated from her husband in 1859, threw him out of the house on allegations of infidelity and later obtained a divorce. At the beginning of the US Civil War , she volunteered as a civilian in the Union Army and served as a paramedic or nurse in hospitals in the Washington, DC area (doctors were not officially admitted to the army at the time). She later took on the duties of a surgeon at the front. Among others in the First Battle of Bull Run , the Battle of Fredericksburg , the Battle of Chattanooga and the Battle of Chickamauga . It was not until 1863 that she received an official position as a surgeon in the Army of the Cumberland , the first female surgeon in the US Army , albeit as a civilian contract doctor. She also often changed the front line to take care of civilians. She was arrested by a Confederate patrol in April 1864 while serving as an assistant surgeon with the 52nd Ohio Infantry . She was imprisoned at Castle Thunder in Richmond and was released in August through an exchange with a Confederate officer . She continued her service as an army doctor in the Atlanta campaign and also oversaw a women's prison and orphanage.
After the war she was active as a writer and lecturer. In 1866 she successfully lectured on a tour of France and England. In 1868 she was on a lecture tour in the USA with less success than in Europe. She was part of the suffragette movement and particularly campaigned for the right to wear male clothing for women. That was forbidden at the time and she was arrested several times for violating it. For example, she liked to wear top hats and, like other feminists, initially a dress-pants combination known as the bloomer costume , but from the end of the 1870s she also wore men's clothing. However, this commitment and other dissensions isolated her in the suffragette movement, for example she was against a constitutional amendment on the question of women's suffrage. She also campaigned against tobacco and alcohol and published several books, including a semi-autobiographical book.
In November 1865, she was the proposal from the Generals William Tecumseh Sherman and George Henry Thomas of President Andrew Johnson awarded the highest military decoration of the United States, the Medal of Honor . In 1917, as part of a general revision of the awards, the award was withdrawn from her along with over 900 other medal winners (including Buffalo Bill Cody), but she refused to return it and was re-awarded posthumously in 1977 by Jimmy Carter .
A 20-cent stamp issued by the US Post in 1982 bore her picture and recognized her as the only woman to have received a Medal of Honor .
Fonts
- Hit, 1871
- Unmasked, the science of immorality 1878
- Crowning constitutional argument 1907
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Rudi Williams: Only Woman Medal of Honor Holder Ahead of Her Time. In: American Forces Press Service , April 30, 1999, available from the Department of Defense on May 22, 2017.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Walker, Mary Edwards |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American doctor and suffragette |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 26, 1832 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Oswego (New York) |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 21, 1919 |
| Place of death | Oswego (New York) |