Mary Putnam Jacobi

Education

George Palmer Putnam Victorine Haven Putnam
Portrait of Victorine Haven Putnam. Source Portrait of George Palmer Putnam. Source

Mary was homeschooled by her mother and then attended a private school in Yonkers and finally an all girls public school in Manhattan to finish her high school education. She continued her education at the New York College of Pharmacy and then, at the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania where she was able to convince her professors to let her sit her exams early and therefore graduate ahead of her peers. She worked at the New England Hospital for Women and Children, but felt dissatisfied with her American education so she enrolled at the École de Médecine, a top medical school in Paris. At first she was not accepted due to her gender but she was able to convince the school to allow her to attend. She ended up graduating with honors in 1871, and was the first woman to graduate from the school. Her immense education allowed her to be taken seriously in the medical world even when people tried to disregard her because of her gender.



Medical Achievements

Jacobi Essay cover
Cover page of The Question of Rest for Women During Menstruation. 1877.Source.







After finishing her education, Mary Jacobi immersed herself in the world of medicine and had immense success. She founded the Association for the Advancement of the Medical Education of Women and was the attending physician at the New York Infirmary. Her greatest contribution to the medical world was her essay, The Question of Rest for Women During Menstruation. This essay ended up winning her the Boylston Prize at Harvard University. She wrote this essay after Dr. Edward Clarke wrote an essay called, Sex in Education, or, A Fair Chance for the Girls, which claimed that if women didn’t rest during menstruation they would end up infertile. Jacobi saw how blatantly false this was and decided to prove this in her essay. With statistics and sphygmograph tracings of pulse rate, force and variations of a 268 women test group, she was able to show the stability of a woman’s health during her menstruation cycle, thus proving to her peers the accuracy of her statements.



Suffragette

Common Sense Cover
Title page of "Common Sense" Applied to Woman Suffrage. 1915. Source.








Mary Jacobi was the first woman in many of the endeavors she set out to accomplish over the course of her career. She was able to graduate early from the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania despite her male professors who were against it. She was first female student at the École de Médecine. She was the first woman to join the New York Academy of Medicine and she was the first woman to win the Boylston Prize at Harvard University. She also wrote frequently on the topic of women's suffrage, particularly in the medical field. She wrote a chapter of Annie Meyer’s “Women’s Work in America” saying, “Women students have been cheated of their time and money, by those paid to instruct them.” (p.198) She also wrote the book “‘Common Sense’ as applied to Women’s Suffrage.” Along with being an incredibly talented doctor, she was a huge feminist activist.