Emily Stowe
Stowe, Emily Howard
Emily Howard Stowe, née Jennings, physician (b at Norwich, UC 1 May 1831; d at Toronto 30 Apr 1903). A lifelong champion of women's rights, Emily Stowe taught school in Brantford and Mount Pleasant, Canada W, and in 1856 married John Stowe, whose illness from tuberculosis inspired her to seek a career in medicine. No Canadian college would accept a woman student, so she enrolled at the New York Medical College for Women and on her graduation in 1867 set up a practice in Toronto. She was the first Canadian woman to practise medicine in Canada, although she was not licensed until 1880. Emily Stowe's struggle to enter the medical profession caused her to organize the Woman's Medical College, Toronto, in 1883. In 1876 she had founded the Toronto Women's Literary Club, Canada's first suffrage group, and she was principal founder and first president of the Dominion Women's Enfranchisement Assn (1889).
Stowe, Emily Howard
Emily Howard Stowe, from The Women's Suffrage Movement in Canada (courtesy Library and Archives Canada/C-9480).
Author CARLOTTA HACKER
Suggested Reading
Carlotta Hacker, The Indomitable Lady Doctors (1974).
Links to Other Sites
Celebrating Women's Achievements
An extensive collection of biographies of women who have made substantial contributions to Canadian culture and society. Also offers teaching guides and reference sources. From Library and Archives Canada.
Emily Stowe: Doctor and Suffragist
See the full text of a biography of pioneer medical doctor and crusader for women's rights in Canada. See also pages 21 - 30 for detailed accounts of various events involving participants in the Rebellions of 1837 in Upper Canada.
The Dominion government's advertisement asked for volunteers "able to read and write either the English or French language" with "good antecedents" who were good horsemen...
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