When was emily stowe born

A commitment to equality was evident in their private lives as well as their public ones. They were also educated. Ties to the United States allowed them to obtain a formal education at Quaker seminaries there. She in turn ensured that her daughters received as rigorous an education as she had had. Dissatisfied with the three schools in Norwich Township, she taught the girls at home.

In addition to a general knowledge and a love of learning, she apparently passed on her skills in herbal healing. The only son died in infancy, and the six daughters assumed much of the outdoors and farming work that would otherwise have been consigned to him.

They also achieved some economic independence. At age 15 Emily accepted employment as a schoolteacher in the neighbouring town of Summerville, and she taught for seven years. She entered in November and was graduated with first-class honours in Hired as principal of a Brantford public school, she taught there until her marriage in It is not known how Emily had met John Stowe, a native of Yorkshire who had immigrated to Canada at the age of John later assumed the business, and after marrying, he and Emily lived in the village.

Emily apparently converted to Methodism, but formal religion did not play a strong role in her subsequent life. Shortly after the birth of their third child, in , John contracted tuberculosis. The impact of his illness upon the family economy is unclear. Ostensibly faced with the prospect of supporting her family, Emily accepted a teaching position at the local grammar school.

Simultaneously she began to investigate possibilities for medical training. It seems unlikely, however, that economic considerations motivated her to study medicine. Physicians were not well paid in midth-century Upper Canada, and there were no provisions for women to join the profession. If Emily was acting out of financial necessity, it is odd that she abandoned the teaching career for which she had qualified in favour of a long course of study and a protracted battle over professional credentials.

Her sister Cornelia Lossing stepped in to care for the children while Emily pursued her medical training. That two other sisters, Hannah Augusta and Ella, also completed studies in the field suggests a pervasive family interest in it. The opportunities to study medicine were extremely limited in Canada.

Emily apparently applied to the Toronto School of Medicine, affiliated with the University of Toronto, although the exact date of her application is uncertain. The university, however, did not admit women. By she had resolved to train in the United States. The precise date at which she entered the college is unclear, but it was likely She received her degree in The Lossings and the Howards had maintained close ties with their American friends and relatives, and they had often sent their children, specially daughters, south to study.

It is also likely that Emily sought homoeopathic training. Her mother had long taken part in herbal healing, and Joseph J. Lancaster, a homoeopathic physician who practised in Norwich until , was a close friend of the Jennings family. Emily displayed her own affinity for homoeopathy. She was apprenticed to Lancaster possibly as early as the s and she chose to attend a homoeopathic medical college. The Stowes also betrayed more subtle homoeopathic leanings.

Upon their marriage she and John had built themselves an octagonal house, of the sort that Lancaster had also built and that was much prescribed by eclectic and homoeopathic practitioners of the s.

If Emily wished to practise homoeopathic medicine and study it formally, then she had no choice but to go south, for there were no training programs in Canada. However, she did not procure a professional licence. Medical practice and licensing changed considerably during the s as orthodox allopathic physicians attempted to consolidate their authority and erode the position of homoeopaths and eclectics through new requirements for registration.

She then worked for the Brantford School Board, , perhaps the first woman appointed principal of a public school in Canada West. Emily married carpenter and carriagemaker John Stowe in She left teaching and moved to his community of Mount Pleasant, south of Brantford.

After John was diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent to a sanitorium, Emily resumed teaching to support her family, but found it economically unrewarding. Influenced by her Quaker upbringing and having learned homeopathic medicine in the s from a family friend, in she decided to become a doctor.

While she studied, her sister Cornelia cared for the Stowe children and household, just as Quaker women once did for married women who went on preaching journeys. In Stowe was denied admission to the Toronto School of Medicine. The Vice-President of the University of Toronto told her, "The doors of the University are not open to women and I trust they never will be.

She studied under Dr. Clemence Lozier, a former teacher who had obtained the charter for her medical school with the aid of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Since New York's Bellevue Hospital welcomed the help of women medical students during the Civil War, Stowe was allowed, despite male medical student displeasure, to participate in its clinics and learn dissection.

A witness to the divisions within the American woman's movement, Stowe adopted a patient strategy, encouraging gradual progress, when later advancing women's rights and suffrage in her own country.

After graduating in , Stowe began to practice homeopathic medicine in Toronto. As earlier women doctors Elizabeth Blackwell and Clemence Lozier had done, Stowe stimulated public interest with lectures on women's health. From that time on, she always had enough patients. She maintained the numbers through newspaper advertisements. Stowe was disappointed that, even with her degree, she still could not obtain a medical license.

Not until was she allowed to take the courses at the University of Toronto required of holders of foreign medical credentials, and then only by special arrangement.

She found the classroom behaviour of a faculty member and some students towards her despicable. She did not get her licence for years afterwards as she refused to take the written and oral exams administered by the men of the Council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. The most serious incident of Stowe's medical career occurred in An investigation into the death of a pregnant woman revealed that she had taken medicine prescribed by Stowe.

Their family friend, Joseph J. Lancaster, was a homeopathic physician. As a teenager and young adult, Stowe worked at times as an apprentice to Lancaster. Emily Stowe and her sisters also worked together on the family farm. In , at the age of 15, Stowe began to work as a teacher in the town of Summerville, Ontario. She taught there for seven years.

She was not admitted because she was female. Stowe then applied to the Normal School for Upper Canada Toronto , which was the only advanced school in Canada that accepted women. Stowe was accepted in and graduated in with first-class honours. After graduating, Stowe accepted a job with the Brantford school board and soon became the first female principal of a public school in Ontario.

She worked as a principal in Brantford until They lived in Mount Pleasant, Ontario, a small village near Brantford, and had a daughter, Ann Augusta , and two sons.

In , John Stowe became sick with tuberculosis. His illness may have inspired Stowe to further study herbal healing and medicine. In , Stowe took on a teaching position at the local grammar school and began to research places to study medicine.

Stowe applied to the Toronto School of Medicine in but was not accepted. At that time, women were not admitted to medical schools in Canada. While she attended medical school, her sister Cornelia Lossing helped to look after her children. Stowe received her degree in Stowe returned to Canada in and opened a medical practice on Richmond Street in Toronto.

She specialized in treating diseases of women and children. However, in the mids, the medical profession in Canada began requiring that homeopathic doctors and doctors trained in the United States take further courses and an examination in order to obtain their medical licences.

In , Stowe applied to take classes in chemistry and physiology at the University of Toronto to qualify for her licence. She was denied entry. In , Stowe was finally admitted to the Toronto School of Medicine. Along with fellow female physician Jennie Trout , Stowe became one of the two first women to attend classes there. However, Stowe still did not receive her medical licence. There is no record that Stowe took the licensing exam required by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.