Emily Stowe
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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)
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Emily Stowe was born in Oxford County, Ontario. She was the eldest of 6 girls. When she came back to Canada she practied medicine in Toronto. She specialised in diseases of children and women. She died in 1903. She continued to go to school until she was 15. After that she went to become a teacher at another school. She received a certificate of first class teaching. She later continued to become the principal of Brandford public school. She maried John Stowe in 1856. In the next 7 years she had 3 children. Her husband also developped tuberculose. Emily then decied to become a doctor.
