A woman walks down the street in a long coat and pants. The year is 1866 in New York. That woman, who defies social norms, is arrested. To the use of a garment “for men”, she adds the exercise of a profession that is also masculinized and in a war context, where men go to fight. This is Mary Edwards Walkerone of the few female surgeons during the American Civil War (1861-1865)which has treated wounded people in the middle of the battlefield.
Pioneer in a society hostile to women who did not follow the domestic model and ventured into unaccepted professions and behaviors, receives the Medal of Honor from the United States Congress. But, the still strong social resistance against these changes will cause that recognition to be revoked in 1917.
Mary was born in the city of Oswego, New York, on November 26, 1832. She was the youngest of seven children in the family formed by Alvah and Vesta Walker, who broke with the traditional canons of the time. Their parents, devout Christians and free thinkers, raised them equally, without imposing differences in gender roles.
The mother took care of heavy work in the fields and the father did the housework. This progressive environment influenced the development of Mary’s independent spirit and sense of justice.
Alvah and Vesta founded Oswego’s first free school in the 1830s, and their children attended primary school there.
For higher education, Mary and two of her older sisters attended Falley Seminary in Fulton, New York, an institution that promoted modern social reform in gender, education, and hygiene. It was there that Mary strengthened her determination to challenge feminine standards.
On her wedding day, she wore a short skirt with pants underneath and refused the word “obey” in her vows.
Marriage in pants
As a voracious reader of her father’s anatomy and physiology books, Mary developed her interest in medicine. She worked as a teacher to finance her studies at Syracuse Medical College, where in 1855 she graduated with honors. She had been the only woman in the classrooms.
At that same time, at almost 23 years old, Mary married Albert Miller, a fellow student. On her wedding day, she wore a short skirt with pants underneath, refused the word “obey” in her vows, and kept her last name.
Together they opened a practice in the town of Roma, in the state of New York, but faced difficulties given the little respect and trust that was had towards women doctors. Some time later, and due to Miller’s infidelity, the marriage was dissolved.
Mary had several rejections under her belt. She was suspended while she attended Bowen Collegiate Institute (later Lenox College) in Iowa, for refusing to resign from the school’s debating society, which until her entry had been exclusively male. And at the outbreak of the Civil War, when she applied as an official surgeon for the Union Army (which proposed the abolition of slavery), she was rejected as a woman.
She applied as an officer surgeon for the Union Army, but was rejected because she was a woman.
Arrested for spy
In exchange, they offered her to participate as a nurse (more akin to women), but she declined the offer and She offered her services as a volunteer and became the first female surgeon in that military force.. During the conflict, he served at the First Battle of Bull Run and at the Patent Office Hospital in Washington, D.C.
She also worked as an unpaid field surgeon near the Union front lines at the Battle of Fredericksburg and in Chattanooga after the Battle of Chickamauga.
In September 1863, Walker was employed as a Contract Assistant Surgeon (civilian) by the Army of the Cumberland, a major Union Army, and was later assigned to the 52nd Ohio Infantry.
During his service, he frequently crossed battle lines to treat wounded civilians. On April 10, 1864, she was captured by Confederate (pro-slavery) troops and arrested as a spy after helping a Confederate doctor perform an amputation.
She was sent to Castle Thunder in Richmond, Virginia, until her release in a prisoner exchange on August 12, 1864.
After the war, Walker received a pension, which was increased for disability due to partial muscle atrophy suffered during his imprisonment. At that time, she devoted herself to writing and lecturing on health care, temperance, women’s rights, and women’s dress reform. As she always respected her will to dress according to her preferences, she frequently suffered several arrests for wearing men’s clothing.
Mary received an award in 1977, many years after her death in 1919.
The fight for the vote
Walker was a member of the Central Woman’s Suffrage Bureau in Washington, DC, and raised funds to endow a professorship at Howard University School of Medicine.
In 1871, she wanted to register to vote but was rejected. Their initial position was that women already had the right to vote and that Congress only needed to enact enabling legislation. But over time this position changed and the adoption of a constitutional amendment was promoted. As Walker did not support this amendment, he fell out of favor within the suffrage movement.
Mary never gave up her early rebellions and wore pants with suspenders under a knee-length dress. But these behaviors transcended the personal and Mary gained fame for her campaign in favor of reforming the women’s fashion system.
Without paying attention to criticism and ridicule, convinced that clothing must above all promote freedom of movement and circulation, He criticized long dresses and numerous petticoats for being garments that constricted and made women uncomfortable.
He asked the Government for a brief retroactive or a commission to validate his service on the front. President Andrew Johnson ordered Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to study the matter. Although Johnson personally awarded Mary the Medal of Honor, in 1917 her name was removed from the records along with 900 other recipients. Mary received an award in 1977, many years after her death in 1919.
Respecting her lifestyle, she was buried in a simple funeral, but with a flag of her country on the coffin and dressed in a black suit. And in keeping with her existence of recognitions and denials, she died a year before the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was approved, which guaranteed women their right to vote.
His journey leaves a lasting legacy in the practice of medicine and in the fight to achieve rights. Both her provocations and her drive and determination broke barriers and paved the way for future generations of women in male-dominated fields.
Mary Edwards Walker built a dissident female model in the conservative and hostile society of his time, and his achievements in absolute difficulty remain an inexhaustible source of inspiration today. w