by Marlene Cook, IWPA Historian
So We All Can Be Heard
by Marlene Cook, IWPA Historian
Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson was born in Buffalo Grove (now Polo) IL
in 1841, her grandfather being one of its earliest settlers. She was almost
35 years old before she began her successful medical practice. She attended
Mount Carroll Seminary and graduated from Illinois State Normal University,
Bloomington, in 1863 as a teacher. She taught in Bloomington, Mount Morris and
Sterling. She studied anatomy and physiology at the Women's Medical College
in Chicago and South Kensington Science School in London and was returning to
reenter the Women's Medical College when she learned of the Chicago fire. Gathering
supplies, she shipped a carload to victims the next day. The burned out college
was housed in a barn. Graduating with honors in 1874, she eventually served
as its physiology chair. Dr. Stevenson was appointed an alternate for the 1876
AMA convention in Philadelphia; when the delegate was unable to attend, she
took his place and became the first woman member (nine years before she became
an IWPA founder). She was also the first woman appointed to the staff at Cook
County Hospital.
Stevenson helped start a training school for nurses and served on its board,
faculty and hospital committee. She joined the Woman's Temperance Union and
when Chicago's Frances E. Willard (another IWPA founder) Temperance Hospital
opened in 1886, Stevenson was medical staff president. She helped found The
Home for Incurables and the Chicago Maternity Center. (Note: I was born at home
with the assistance of the Chicago Maternity Center). She wrote textbooks on
biology for school use, articles for many medical journals and became staff
correspondent for the Record Newspaper.
Dr. Stevenson was co-chair with Julia Holmes Smith (also an IWPA founder) of
the Medical and Surgery Congress and The World's Congress of Medico-Climatology
at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. They built a model working hospital
to showcase women physicians and treated more than 3,000 patients.
After suffering a stroke in 1903, she retired from professional work and moved
into the St. Elizabeth's Hospital in 1906. She died there in 1909 at the age
of 68 and is buried at St. Boniface Cemetery in Chicago.
Stevenson's leadership gained much recognition for needs and abilities of women.
Eight years after her death, the Chicago Tribune wrote, "She has
done much to make the way easier for women." She improved medical care
for women and her activism resulted in new social welfare programs for women
and children.