Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, Civil War Surgeon

Mary Edwards Walker was an unconventional woman. She was a proponent of womens rights and dress reform—especially the wearing of Bloomers which didnt enjoy wide currency until the  sport of bicycling  became popular. In 1855 she became one of the earliest female physicians upon graduation from Syracuse Medical College. She married Albert Miller, a fellow student, in a ceremony that did not include a promise to obey; she did not take his name, and to her wedding wore trousers and a dress-coat. Neither the marriage nor their joint medical practice lasted long. At the start of the Civil War, Dr. Mary E. Walker volunteered with the Union Army and adopted mens clothing. She was at first not allowed to work as a physician, but as a nurse and as a spy. She finally won a commission as an army surgeon in the Army of the Cumberland, 1862. While treating civilians, she was taken prisoner by the Confederates and was imprisoned for four months until she was released in a prisoner exchange. Her official service record reads: Dr. Mary E. Walker (1832 - 1919) Rank and organization: Contract Acting Assistant Surgeon (civilian), U. S. Army. Places and dates: Battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861 Patent Office Hospital, Washington, D.C., October 1861 Following Battle of Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Tennessee September 1863 Prisoner of War, Richmond, Virginia, April 10, 1864 - August 12, 1864 Battle of Atlanta, September 1864. Entered service at: Louisville, Kentucky Born: 26 November 1832, Oswego County, N.Y. In 1866, the London Anglo-American Times wrote this of her: Her strange adventures, thrilling experiences, important services and marvelous achievements exceed anything that modern romance or fiction has produced.... She has been one of the greatest benefactors of her sex and of the human race. After the Civil War, she worked primarily as a writer and lecturer, usually appearing dressed in a mans suit and top hat. Dr. Mary E. Walker was awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor for her Civil War service, in an order signed by President Andrew Johnson on November 11, 1865. When, in 1917, the government revoked 900 such medals, and asked for Walkers medal back, she refused to return it and wore it until her death two years later. In 1977 President Jimmy Carter restored her medal posthumously, making her the first woman to hold a Congressional Medal of Honor. Early Years Dr. Mary Walker was born in Oswego, New York. Her mother was Vesta Whitcom and her father was Alvah Walker, both originally from Massachusetts and descended from early Plymouth settlers who had first moved to Syracuse -- in a covered wagon -- and then to Oswego. Mary was the fifth of five daughters at her birth. and another sister and a brother would be born after her.  Alvah Walker was trained as a carpenter who, in Oswego, was settling into a farmers life. Oswego was a place where many became abolitionists -- including neighbor Gerrit Smith -- and supporters of womens rights. The womens rights convention of 1848 was held in upstate New York. The Walkers supported the growing abolitionism, and also such movements as health reform and temperance.   The agnostic speaker Robert Ingersoll was Vestas cousin.  Mary and her siblings were raised religiously, though rejecting the evangelism of the time and not associating with any sect. Everyone in the family worked hard on the farm, and were surrounded by many books which the children were encouraged to read. The Walker family helped to found a school on their property, and Marys older sisters were teachers at the school. Young Mary became involved with the growing womens rights movement. She may also have first met Frederick Douglass when he spoke in her home town. She also developed, from reading medical books which she read in her home, the idea that she could be a physician.   She studied for a year at Falley Seminary in Fulton, New York, a school which included courses in the sciences and health.  She moved to Minetto, New York, to take a position as a teacher, saving to enroll in medical school. Her family had also been involved in dress reform as one aspect of womens rights, avoiding the tight clothing for women that restricted movement, and instead advocating for more loose clothing.  As a teacher, she modified her own clothing to be looser in the waste, shorter in the skirt, and with pants underneath. In 1853 she enrolled in Syracuse Medical College, six years after  Elizabeth Blackwells medical education. This school was part of a movement towards eclectic medicine, another part of the health reform movement and conceived of as a more democratic approach to medicine than the traditional allopathic medical training.  Her education included traditional lectures and also interning with an experienced and licensed physician. She graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in 1855, qualified as both a medical doctor and as a surgeon. Marriage and Early Career She married a fellow student, Albert Miller, in 1955, after knowing him from their studies.  The abolitionist and Unitarian Rev. Samuel J. May performed the marriage, which excluded the word obey. The marriage was announced not only in local papers, but in  The Lily,  the dress reform periodical of Amelia Bloomer. Mary Walker and Albert Mmiller opened a medical practice together. By the late 1850s she became active in the womens rights movement, focusing on dress reform. Some key suffrage supporters including Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucy Stone adopted the new style including shorter skirts with pants worn underneath. But the attacks and ridicule about clothing from the press and public began to, in the opinion of some suffrage activists, distract from womens rights.  Many went back to traditional dress, but Mary Walker continued to advocate for more comfortable, safer clothing. Out of her activism, Mary Walker added first writing and then lecturing to her professional life. She wrote and spoke about delicate matters including abortion and pregnancy outside of marriage. She even wrote an article on women soldiers. Fighting for a Divorce In 1859, Mary Walker discovered that her husband was involved in an extramarital affair.  She asked for a divorce, he suggested that instead, she also find affairs outside their marriage. She pursued a divorce, which also meant that she worked to establish a medical career without him, despite the significant social stigma of divorce even among those women working for womens rights.  Divorce laws of the time made a divorce difficult without the consent of both parties. Adultery was grounds for a divorce, and Mary Walker had amassed evidence of multiple affairs including one that resulted in a child, and another where her husband had seduced a woman patient.  When she still could not get a divorce in New York after nine years, and knowing that even after the granting of a divorce there was a five year waiting period until it became final, she left her medical, writing, and lecture careers in New York and moved to Iowa, where divorce was not so difficult.   Iowa In Iowa, she was at first unable to convince people that she was, at the young age of 27, qualified as a physician or teacher.  After enrolling in school to study German, she discovered they did not have a German teacher. She participated in a debate, and was expelled for participating.  She discovered that New York state would not accept an out of state divorce, so she returned to that state. War When Mary Walker returned to New York in 1859, war was on the horizon. When the war broke out, she decided to go to war, but not as a nurse, which was the job the military was recruiting for, but as a physician. Known for:  among the earliest woman physicians; first woman to win the Medal of Honor; Civil War service including commission as an army surgeon; dressing in mens clothing Dates:  November 26, 1832 - February 21, 1919 Print Bibliography Harris, Sharon M.  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹Dr. Mary Walker, An American Radical, 1832 - 1919  . 2009.Synder, Charles McCool.  Dr. Mary Walker: The Little Lady in Pants.  1974.   More About Mary Walker: Profession:  PhysicianAlso known  as:  Dr. Mary Walker, Dr. Mary E. Walker, Mary E. Walker, Mary Edwards WalkerOrganizational Affiliations: Union ArmyPlaces: New York, United StatesPeriod: 19th century

Social Inequality Inequality And Inequality - 3119 Words

Core Assessment Paper Carrie Bailey Park University Social Inequality in My Life Social inequality is described by the presence of unequal opportunities and rewards for various social positions or statuses inside a society or group. It contains organized and repetitive examples of unequal distributions of goods, riches, opportunities, prizes, and disciplines. Racism, for instance, is comprehended to be a wonder whereby access to rights and resources is unreasonably disseminated crosswise over racial lines. With regards to the U.S., minorities ordinarily encounter racism, which benefits white individuals by presenting them with white privilege, which permits them more noteworthy access to rights and resources than†¦show more content†¦As a child, I grew up with three siblings and a single mother, in public housing. On welfare and food stamps, our household income was below the poverty line. My father was absent and had never finished high school and my mother had a high school diploma, however, she never attended college. Alth ough, I look Caucasian, my mother was of Mexican and Native American descent. Because I was raised by a single mother who was raised in the Mexican culture, I was also raised in the same way. In our home, what we lacked in finances, we made up for in love and affection. Multi-racial children often find it hard to â€Å"fit in† when they don’t really fit into the culture of one ethnicity over the other. Past studies had expected that if an individual had a multiracial heritage that he or she naturally identified with that heritage. However, Binning and his fellow researchers theorized that basically having a place with different racial groups did not ensure that a man would psychologically relate to those groups. We imagined that diving further into the multiracial classification to inspect how such people translated their racial character would help our comprehension of multiracial psychology, said Binning, a post-doctoral researcher at Stanford GSB and coauthor of The Interpretation of Multiracial Status and Its Relation to SocialShow MoreRelatedSocial Inequalities By Jonathan Kozal Essay1570 Words   |  7 Pagessimultaneously believe that schools are places where social inequalities should be equalized, where the advantages or disadvantages that children experience in their homes and families should not determine what happens to them in school-in essence, that school is a place where children should have equal chances to make the most of their potential.† (Inequality) The 1991 article Savage Inequalities written by Jonathan Kozal highlights the fact that every person is entitled to the right to receiveRead MoreEssay on Social Inequality Between Men and Women1102 Words   |  5 PagesThere are many forms of social inequality that can be analyzed in the study of anthropology. 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George Herberts Imagery free essay sample

Ashley Adams Instructor: Adam Helmintoller English section 241-40 16 November 2011 George Herbert’s Imagery The poem â€Å"Easter wings† by George Herbert is a poem that contains deep imagery which is shown not only in his words but also his visual structure. Herbert chooses the structure of a pair of wings for many different reasons. He also gives his poem a lot of imagery which should help the reader gain a different perspective to the poem. The poem explains Herbert’s desires to fly with Jesus after his resurrection. Herbert put himself deliberately in the poem by commonly using â€Å"I† and â€Å"me†. Herbert then addresses the audience in the first line with â€Å"Lord†, meaning Jesus Christ. Yet the confusion is of where the poem starts since it is split in two parts but having to be read sideways. This could be used to invoke visions of both wings, meaning that instead of looking at one large poem there is actually two smaller poems instead. We will write a custom essay sample on George Herberts Imagery or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Lord, who createth man in wealth and store† is the beginning of this poem, helping to immediately establish the audience in the first word (Greenblatt 1609). It also reveals the poem as a type of prayer towards God. Herbert uses the â€Å"winged† look in his poem to more or less catch the readers eye an relate to the imagery Herbert uses in the poem with his words. The beginning of the poem describes the fall of men from â€Å"wealth† into the â€Å"decaying† of life from sinful nature, â€Å"Lord, who createst man in wealth and store, Though foolishly he lost the same, Decaying more and more Till he became Most poor:† the structure of the first few lines parallel the content, by having the lines â€Å"decaying† in length but also the imagery â€Å"decaying† with the fall of mankind (Greenblatt 1609). Herbert wanted his audience to see the parallelism between the shape and the actual meaning of the poem. Herbert wanted the reader to find the true meaning of the poem by connecting it with the shape. In the second part of the two poems is turning in emotion and finishing with the poet taking â€Å"flight† and completing the second wing: â€Å"With thee O let me rise As larks, harmoniously, And sing this day thy victories: Then shall the fall further the flight in me. † This stanza is rich in imagery (Greenblatt 1609). It seems like the second part of the first poem â€Å"beats its wing† against the decline of the first part in the first poem, showing how the â€Å"fall† of man â€Å"furthered the flight† in Herbert as it created the way for the crucifixion of Jesus. It was this action which redeemed man so they could have fellowship with God again. While in the first part you see Herbert using he and the word man, where as in the second part the poem becomes more personal to Herbert when he uses me. This part of the poem could be meant as the personal prayer to God thanking him for the death of his son and our salvation. Also of note is the use of â€Å"larks, harmoniously† to give a beautiful, resonate feel to the poem; opposite to that of words like â€Å"decaying† and â€Å"most poor† used in the first stanza. The first three lines of the second stanza, â€Å"With thee/ O let me rise/ As larks, harmoniously† tells us Herbert wants to be with Jesus during the resurrection (Greenblatt 1609). Herbert then uses the word harmoniously suggesting a group of voices and a group of people. And since Herbert is insinuating harmounisly as a group which is most commonly seen as three, this would support the idea of the trinity. The trinity which is specifically the trinity of Jesus as father, son, and Holy Spirit which Herbert wanted to relate to in his poem. If you look more closely to the second part of the poem it’s obvious that it’s just a continuous to the first part while addressing the same audience in the first part. As the first stanza spoke of the â€Å"fall† of man into sin, the third stanza becomes more personal to the poet: â€Å"My tender age in sorrow did begin: And still with sicknesses and shame Though didst so punish sin, That I became Most thin†, once again, this part decreases every line like that of the first (Greenblatt 1609). Following the beginning of the second part Herbert explains him not being innocent of sin with the comment of him being â€Å"most thin†. This ending should give the reader a feel of loss and unfinished ending. Ideally, our virtues and wisdom should grow with age; Herbert reveals that this is not necessarily the case. With the passing of time, the poet expresses that his only gain was that of guilt and sin. It is also somewhat impossible to live life without sin. Again the poet picks up from where he left off and begins the next stanza with words of rejuvenation. However, this stanza adds an element of connection: â€Å"With thee let me combine, And feel this day thy victory; For, if I imp my wing on thine, Affliction shall advance the flight in me† (Greenblatt 1609). Herbert then states his want for salvation to â€Å"combine† with Jesus and be grafted onto his wings. This would suggest he doesn’t want to be only â€Å"with† Jesus but grafted â€Å"onto† Jesus, which a much closer relationship would be made. Herbert did this appropriately to show how the course of man’s action, led to the affliction and fall of man. It is difficult to see how negatives such as â€Å"affliction† and â€Å"fall† could lead to glory but it is this resistance, much like that of a wing beating against the resistance of gravity and air, that furthers not only the flight of the poet but also that of mankind. apricotpie) After analyzing Herbert’s poem, the winged imagery can be seen throughout, and the reasoning for the shape and imagery. Herbert wanted to show people of his time and from then on many truths in the poem. . Not only does the shape and imagery have a great effect on the reader, but the emotional swing s and shifting play many â€Å"tricks† on the reader as we go through Herbert’s poem. Also Herbert’s original presentation is most unusual and confronts the reader with an awkward dilemma. In order to access the words of his poem the page must be turned sideways. This turning of the page could be Herbert’s way of changing our point of view. How man’s decline because of sin was defeated by the actions of the cross. So the point of Herbert’s work â€Å"Easter Wings† May not actually be understood with maybe just one reading but with multiple readings. . But Herbert did show us that using shape and imagery throughout his poem that many different meanings and points can be made within one poem. . He also helped us to understand his view of right and wrong, Herbert used imagery throughout his poem to give us a sense into his life and his value system. In doing so he gave the readers of his poems a chance to find all of the truths and meanings in his poem. Lastly in Herbert’s poem he wants us to be grateful of the gift that God has given to us, by allowing his only son to die for the salvation of our sins to wash us clean with grace, it is this action which allows all of mankind, and not just Herbert, to be grafted into Jesus’ wing to â€Å"further the flight† in us all. Herbert’s ideas all together try to make a positive feedback onto the reader, beginning with wanting to return with less sin and trying to â€Å"fly† with Jesus towards salvation.