Capable Minds

Though Hopkins had always admitted female students to the medical school, its senior faculty was all male until 1917.

These men, figureheads of a renowned scientific institution, could influence public views. Founding dean William Welch observed that female students "have the same capabilities, capacity, fitness and aptitude, mentally and physically, for the study of medicine as men."

Correcting biological misperceptions fell within their professional domain, but most kept their opinions on suffrage private, lest they bring political controversy upon the institution. Some Hopkins doctors, like renowned clinician William Osler, remained privately opposed, but none waged a public “anti” campaign.

Howard Kelly standing on steps of the Kelly Clinic, 1418 Eutaw Place, Baltimore

Howard Kelly on the steps of his private clinic, 1928 (Chesney Medical Archives)

Dora Kelly Lewis released from jail after five days of hunger striking, 1918 (Library of Congress)

Alice Paul, 1913 (Library of Congress)

In favor of votes for women, part of an address delivered before the Just Government League of Maryland by Howard A. Kelly, M. D.

Pro-suffrage speech by Howard Kelly. Click for full document. (Enoch Pratt Free Library).

Howard Kelly, professor of gynecological surgery, made his pro-suffrage views known.

He was deeply religious and an outspoken proponent of anti-vice measures. Some religious leaders used Scripture to argue that women belonged in the home, but Kelly saw women voters as allies in his crusade to pass Christian moral reforms.

"They want to vote. I believe they will do it so let them vote."

--Howard Kelly, notes on a lecture by suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst.

Howard Kelly’s younger sister, Dora Kelly Lewis, was a major force behind the formation of the National Women’s Party (NWP) in 1913, which introduced more urgent protest tactics such as pickets and hunger strikes. Howard arranged medical aid for hunger striking suffragists.

When NWP leader Alice Paul was diagnosed with a fatal illness in 1917, Dora sent her to Howard for a second opinion. He corrected the misdiagnosis; she was simply exhausted from constant campaigning.

Program for the National American Woman Suffrage Association thirty-eighth annual convention

This program from the landmark 1906 suffrage covention in Baltimore shows how prominent medical men exerted their influence by attending events in the media spotlight. (Enoch Pratt Free Library)

Program for the National American Woman Suffrage Association thirty-eighth annual convention, page 3

Program for the National American Woman Suffrage Association thirty-eighth annual convention, page 9

Program for the National American Woman Suffrage Association thirty-eighth annual convention, page 13

Program for the National American Woman Suffrage Association thirty-eighth annual convention, page 15

The Convention program indicates that Ira Remsen, the president of Johns Hopkins University, presided over the convention on February 8, with William Welch and Howard Kelly also speaking

Newspapers reported that school of medicine faculty members Joseph Bloodgood, W. G. MacCallum, and Thomas McCrae were in the audience.

Click on the images to see selected pages from the 1906 Program for the National American Woman Suffrage Association Convention. (Enoch Pratt Free Library)

Franklin Mall, 1911 (Chesney Medical Archives)

William Sedgwick, sketch in the New York Times (New York Times)

Another Hopkins faculty member, anatomist Franklin P. Mall, stepped into the national debate over suffrage on the pages of the New York Times.

Mall married medical student Mabel S. Glover in 1894, and was influenced by her work in the Just Government League of Maryland. The fate of women’s suffrage lay in the hands of male voters and legislators, so their participation was crucial.

In January of 1914, the New York Times ran an extensive interview with MIT biologist William Sedgwick, in which Sedgwick called feminists “mistakes of nature” and foretold the “total destruction” of civilized society if women achieved gender equity.

Mall's rebuttal to Sedgwick, published a few weeks later, did not match Sedgwick's alarmist hyperbole, but rather stated facts in a neutral manner. Mall cited his twenty years' experience with teaching female students, reporting that they required no special accommodations and performed "above the average" even at the nation's most competitive medical school.