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Ella Ware, Md, the Country “NO NIGHT WAS EVER TOO DARK OR ROAD TOO LONG FOR HER”: ELLA WARE, M.D., THE COUNTRY DOC A STATE-EDUCATED WOMAN PRACTICING MEDICINE IN EARLY 20TH CENTURY RURAL TEXAS ___________ A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History Sam Houston State University ___________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts ___________ by Kassie M. Dixon December, 2016 “NO NIGHT WAS EVER TOO DARK OR ROAD TOO LONG FOR HER”: ELLA WARE, M.D., THE COUNTRY DOC A STATE-EDUCATED WOMAN PRACTICING MEDICINE IN EARLY 20TH CENTURY RURAL TEXAS by Kassie M. Dixon ___________ APPROVED: Nancy E. Baker, PhD Committee Director Rosanne E. Barker, PhD Committee Member Thomas H. Cox, PhD Committee Member Abbey Zink, PhD Dean, College of Humanities and Social Sciences ABSTRACT Dixon, Kassie M., “No night was ever too dark or road too long for her”: Ella Ware, M.D., The Country Doc, a state-educated woman practicing medicine in early 20th- Century rural Texas.” Master of Arts (History), December, 2016, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas. Around the turn of the twentieth century, women carved out paths for themselves as physicians in the young field of modern medicine in Texas, graduating at a rate of about one per year from the state’s first medical school, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB). Little research on these women exists. In fact, the majority of work on women physicians in the history of medicine concentrates on the urban Northeastern United States, the location of the country’s first medical schools to admit women. Historical work is lacking on women who later undertook the path in the Southern, Western, and rural United States. A study on the origins, education, practice, and social life of Ella Ware, M.D., the second woman to graduate from the Texas medical school, aids in addressing this void. Primary sources, including artifacts, oral histories, newspaper articles, and various records, particularly certificates of birth and death, are used to reconstruct her experience. Examples of contemporary physicians, particularly other women and rural physicians, are drawn on for further period context. Ware decided to go to medical school in 1895, gained her degree in 1899, and practiced until 1949, all with little contention and more flexibility than accrued by many women physicians in the Northeast. Rejecting an offer to teach at the medical school, she made a name for herself in rural South Texas as “the country doc,” working in general medicine with a large focus on maternal care. Yet, just being a woman, acting outside of iii her period’s gender role, and a rural physician in rugged terrain, required ingenuity on her part. She garnered respect from both her community and colleagues. A study of Ware’s adventurous life uncovers factors that help explain the overall positive reception of female doctors in turn of the twentieth century Texas. Embracing aspects of her gender role helped, rather than oppressed her as she carved out a place in a male-dominated field. It suggests more research is needed on women physicians in understudied regions. KEY WORDS: Ella Ware, Stockdale, Texas, Woman physician, Rural medicine, History of medicine. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................... v CHAPTER I ........................................................................................................................ 1 INTRODUCTION & HISTORIOGRAPHY ............................................................... 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 Historiography ...................................................................................................... 2 CHAPTER II ....................................................................................................................... 7 ORIGINS ..................................................................................................................... 7 Background ........................................................................................................... 7 Early Education and Employment ...................................................................... 14 Admission to Medical School ............................................................................ 17 CHAPTER III ................................................................................................................... 19 EDUCATION ............................................................................................................ 19 Women’s Medical Education Across the United States ..................................... 19 Environment & Public Reception at Texas’ First Medical School .................... 22 Benefactor ........................................................................................................... 27 Curriculum .......................................................................................................... 31 Student Life ........................................................................................................ 33 Graduation .......................................................................................................... 46 Postgraduate Education ...................................................................................... 50 CHAPTER IV ................................................................................................................... 54 PRACTICE ................................................................................................................ 54 v Not the First or the Only: Acceptance of Women Medical Practitioners in Texas .............................................................................................................. 54 Where to Practice ............................................................................................... 57 The Country Doc Practices ................................................................................. 63 Maternal Care ..................................................................................................... 76 The Business of Practicing ................................................................................. 80 Her Medical Community .................................................................................... 88 Her Female Contemporaries Practice ................................................................. 92 Her Male Contemporaries Practice .................................................................. 105 CHAPTER V .................................................................................................................. 112 SOCIAL ................................................................................................................... 112 Personal Life ..................................................................................................... 112 Maintaining an Image of Femininity ................................................................ 118 What to Wear .................................................................................................... 120 Discreet Routes to Activism and Reform ......................................................... 124 Religion ............................................................................................................ 132 CHAPTER VI ................................................................................................................. 137 THE END OF HER CAREER ................................................................................ 137 The Fall ............................................................................................................. 137 Celebration ....................................................................................................... 140 Retirement ........................................................................................................ 142 Tributes ............................................................................................................. 145 CHAPTER VII ................................................................................................................ 152 vi CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................ 152 Contributions to Historiography: Women’s and Minorities’ Entry into Medicine Outside the Urban Northeast ............................................................ 161 The Understudied History of Rural Medicine .................................................. 164 Insight into a Different Kind of Turn of the Century Professional Woman ............................................................................................................. 168 Death and Legacy ............................................................................................. 170 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 174 APPENDIX ..................................................................................................................... 192 VITA ............................................................................................................................... 197
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