A few years ago, I went to Princeton University’s campus to see Independence, a one-woman play that showcases the life and achievements of Dr. Mary Edwards Walker. There I learned, that in 1855 Walker became the second woman (after Elizabeth Blackwell) to graduate from medical school in the United States. Ten years later, President Andrew Johnson awarded her the Congressional Medal of Honor, making her the lone woman of approximately 3,500 recipients in U.S. history to receive one.
Among her other efforts during the war, Walker’s outspoken advocacy for women’s rights and dress reform made her a pioneer.
As I watched actress Kathie Barnes bring Walker to life on stage, I wondered why I’d never heard of the woman who’d dubbed herself “the original new woman”—someone who resisted convention in everything she did.
Though Walker remains largely unknown today, her story matters especially in 2021—a time when cultural norms are shifting into new spaces of inclusion for all races, genders, and abilities. Her own path of queerness and unorthodoxy, particularly in her activism for women’s equality and dress reform, unwittingly paved the way for many folks today.
In a March 2019 article for Edutopia, Carly Berwick states, “Persistent, subconscious images of male mathematicians and scientists that start at the earliest ages may be one explanation why girls enter STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—at dramatically lower rates than boys.”
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Dr. Mary Edwards Walker wearing a men's topcoat and hat.
Berwick outlines common barriers girls face, as well as solutions for educators to keep them interested in STEM. But girls today might be most inspired by Walker, whose educational pursuits began with the support of her “free thinking” abolitionist parents.
After attending her parents’ school in Oswego, New York, Walker continued on to Falley Seminary, and ultimately graduated from Syracuse Medical College (originally called Geneva Medical College).
In The Exploress podcast’s premier episode, host Kate J. Armstrong explores life for U.S. women in the mid-nineteenth century, noting that “marriage and family was [women’s] destiny, their lives confined to a small and private sphere,” but with a divided country during the Civil War, “many women found themselves driven, and inspired, to become more than they were told they were supposed to be.” Walker was one such woman; her educational follow-through allowed her to defy the “Cult of Domesticity” that many rural women embodied.
Though Walker’s education separated her from other women, she still participated in one standard practice of the time: marriage, albeit uncustomarily. Shortly after graduating from medical school, Walker married Albert Miller, clad in trousers under her skirt instead of a “proper” wedding gown and, during her vows, she refused the condition to “obey” her husband.
Walker also chose to keep her maiden name, and then bucked tradition even more by divorcing four years later. Around that same time, Walker’s medical practice closed because of the public’s resistance to being treated by a female doctor, leaving her with few financial options.
As a twenty-nine-year-old divorcée, Walker headed to Washington, D.C., to join the Union Army in the Civil War. Again, because of her gender, she faced a series of obstacles, including unpaid surgeon positions until she was finally commissioned as a civilian assistant surgeon. Even so, Walker pushed boundaries by routinely crossing the front lines to treat civilians.
Whitman-Walker Health, a hospital system in the Washington, D.C., area, named for her and Walt Whitman, noted in January 2018 as part of a fortieth anniversary story series: “Dr. Walker’s dedication to never be defined by set expectations of her gender set her ahead of her time,” which we see clearly in her “commitment to care and community” and her “care for people with compassion and dignity when resources were scarce, and fear and bias were plentiful.”
In addition to these positions, among her other efforts during the war, Walker’s outspoken advocacy for women’s rights and dress reform made her a pioneer.
Throughout her life, Walker’s clothing choices subjected her to harassment and rebuke, but nothing stopped her from being herself and pursuing feminist causes. Francesca Willow’s February 2019 article in Ethical Unicorn argues that “abolishing the idea of gendered clothing as we currently know it is one of the best routes to a more sustainable future.”
Walker was an early proponent of such a movement, arguing that women’s clothes were uncomfortable and inhibited mobility, due to the corset and cage, particularly in her work as a surgeon. She wore trousers and jackets instead, which allowed her to move more freely. Though she was repeatedly arrested for dressing like a man, which included wearing her prized top hat, and refused to wear the prison-issued female clothing during her four-month stint in a Confederate prison for suspected spying for the Union, Walker always remained adamant that she didn’t wear men’s clothing, but instead just her own.
Walker, after the Civil War, actively fought for women’s suffrage. The National Park Service says that she first “tried to register in 1871, but was denied” the opportunity, and later, “[i]n 1912 and 1914, she testified in front of the U.S. House of Representatives.” The park service also mentions that in her later years, Walker “opened her home to those who were also ostracized, harassed, and arrested for not conforming to traditional ideas of how people should dress,” which further reflects her resolve to treat all people equally regardless of their outward appearance.
In 1917, the Medal of Honor was stripped from Walker’s name because she had been a civilian in the war, rather than an official member of the army. (The medal was reinstated by President Jimmy Carter in 1977.) However, she refused to give the award back and, instead, proudly wore it until her death in February 1919. It was perhaps her biggest act of defiance.
Walker’s bold approach to breaking gender norms in behavior and dress unknowingly carved a path for people today, especially girls and women, to challenge heteronormative ways of thinking and behaving. Though she remains the only female Medal of Honor recipient during wartime, her role in creating a place for other women’s “firsts” to make history is just as important.
The impact of Dr. Mary Edwards Walker clearly lives on today, as more girls and women pursue STEM-based majors and careers, the nation has its first woman Vice President, and, if her nomination is confirmed, the first transgender woman to serve as Assistant Secretary for Health.