Women's Suffrage Activist. In a time when women rarely attended college, let alone had professional careers, Reverend Doctor Anna Howard Shaw was the first female Methodist minister, one of America's first female physicians, and a life-long campaigner for women's suffrage. She came to the United States with her family when she was about four years old, and was raised on an isolated farm in Michigan, forty miles from the nearest town or post office. She had next-to-no schooling and worked the farm after her father left home to find work and her mother became ill. Self-taught through reading, she became a school teacher at 15, then lived with her sister after the Civil War, when she was finally able to enter high school at the age of 24.
She attended Albion College, graduated from divinity school at Boston University, and in her church work she would not perform marriages with the traditional word "obey" in the vows. She entered medical school while leading two churches before resigning her pastoral duties in 1885 and earning her MD in 1886. She was President of the National American Women's Suffrage Association. She chaired the Women's Council of National Defense during World War I, for which she was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. In the midst of a speaking tour to promote President Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations proposal, she became ill and returned to her home, where she died on July 2, 1919, a year before American women were allowed to vote with passage of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution.
She attended Albion College, graduated from divinity school at Boston University, and in her church work she would not perform marriages with the traditional word "obey" in the vows. She entered medical school while leading two churches before resigning her pastoral duties in 1885 and earning her MD in 1886. She was President of the National American Women's Suffrage Association. She chaired the Women's Council of National Defense during World War I, for which she was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. In the midst of a speaking tour to promote President Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations proposal, she became ill and returned to her home, where she died on July 2, 1919, a year before American women were allowed to vote with passage of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution.
Women's Suffrage Activist. In a time when women rarely attended college, let alone had professional careers, Reverend Doctor Anna Howard Shaw was the first female Methodist minister, one of America's first female physicians, and a life-long campaigner for women's suffrage. She came to the United States with her family when she was about four years old, and was raised on an isolated farm in Michigan, forty miles from the nearest town or post office. She had next-to-no schooling and worked the farm after her father left home to find work and her mother became ill. Self-taught through reading, she became a school teacher at 15, then lived with her sister after the Civil War, when she was finally able to enter high school at the age of 24.
She attended Albion College, graduated from divinity school at Boston University, and in her church work she would not perform marriages with the traditional word "obey" in the vows. She entered medical school while leading two churches before resigning her pastoral duties in 1885 and earning her MD in 1886. She was President of the National American Women's Suffrage Association. She chaired the Women's Council of National Defense during World War I, for which she was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. In the midst of a speaking tour to promote President Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations proposal, she became ill and returned to her home, where she died on July 2, 1919, a year before American women were allowed to vote with passage of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution.
She attended Albion College, graduated from divinity school at Boston University, and in her church work she would not perform marriages with the traditional word "obey" in the vows. She entered medical school while leading two churches before resigning her pastoral duties in 1885 and earning her MD in 1886. She was President of the National American Women's Suffrage Association. She chaired the Women's Council of National Defense during World War I, for which she was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. In the midst of a speaking tour to promote President Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations proposal, she became ill and returned to her home, where she died on July 2, 1919, a year before American women were allowed to vote with passage of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution.
Bio by: Daniel Pletcher
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