Emily Stowe

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Dr. Emily Stowe

Dr. Emily Howard Stowe née Jennings (May 1, 1831 – April 30, 1903) was the first female doctor to practise in Canada, and an activist for women's rights and suffrage. Since no medical school in Canada would accept a woman in the 1860s, she earned her degree in the United States, graduating from the New York Medical College for Women (a homeopathic medical school) in 1867, and returned to open a practice in Toronto, Ontario without a licence.

In 1870, the president of the Toronto School of Medicine granted special permission to Stowe and fellow student Jenny Kidd Trout to attend classes, though she does not seem to have taken the exams for her licence.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario granted Stowe a licence to practice medicine on July 16, 1880, based on her past experience, making Stowe the second female licensed physician in Canada, after Trout.

Her daughter, Augusta Stowe-Gullen, was the first woman to earn a medical degree in Canada.

Stowe was a prominent early suffragist, considered by some to be the mother of the movement in Canada. She founded the Toronto Women's Literary Society, a suffragist organization, and campaigned for professional educational and occupational opportunities for women.

As is true for many suffragists, a tension existed between Stowe's commitment to fellow women and class loyalty. In an episode that may demonstrate the dominance of the latter, Dr. Stowe broke patient confidentiality by disclosing the abortion request of a patient, Sara Ann Lovell, a domestic servant, to her employer. (See Abortion trial of Emily Stowe)

External links

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
• Archive biography