Quick Facts
Biography
Sarah Ann Hackett Stevenson (February 2, 1841 – August 14, 1909) was an early female physician in Illinois, and the first female member of the American Medical Association (AMA).
Born in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, she began her studies at the Mount Carroll Seminary (which later became Shimer College), continuing to Illinois State Normal University where she graduated in 1863. She taught school and served as principal in Sterling, Illinois, but later moved to Chicago to study medicine at Women's Hospital Medical College, where she obtained her MD in 1874, having in the meantime also spent a year in England studying under Thomas Huxley. In 1875, she took up a professorship at the Women's Hospital Medical College, which later became part of Northwestern University but was closed in 1892.
In 1876, attending the AMA convention as a delegate of the Illinois State Medical Society, she was accepted without controversy as the AMA's first female member. In 1880 she co-founded the Illinois Training School for Nurses together with Lucy Flower. She retired in 1903.
Writings
- Boys and Girls in Biology (1875)
- The Physiology of Women (1880)
- Wife and Mother: Or, Information for Every Woman (1888)