The unlikely group of American women who crossed the Atlantic to war-torn France in February 1918 included six doctors, 13 nurses, a dentist, a plumber, an electrician, a carpenter and a mechanic. They were the first wave of women determined to build hospitals to treat the war-wounded and aid Allied efforts in World War I. But they also had an ulterior motive: to prove beyond a doubt that women were just as courageous. , competent and autonomous. -sacrifying as men -and therefore deserved the right to vote at home.
They did this by working side-by-side with men in makeshift hospitals, operating under enemy fire, treating soldiers and war refugees maimed, wounded, gassed or ravaged by influenza.
World War I presented many new opportunities for women – and suffragist groups demanded even more. At the time, only about 6% of American doctors were women, and most could only find positions in hospitals created by and for women. Shortly after America entered the war in 1917, four New York-based physicians, Drs. Caroline Finley, Alice Gregory, Mary Lee Edward, and Anna Von Sholly, volunteered their medical services to the US military and were firmly rejected because they were women.
But the desperate French welcomed the women – with all the funding and supplies they could bring – into the Health Service, which oversees French military medical care.
The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), which has some 2 million members across the country, has partnered with women physicians. At its December 1917 meeting, the NAWSA pledged $ 175,000 to sponsor an all-female team of doctors, nurses, and support staff to build and staff hospitals in France. They called it the Overseas Hospitals Unit for Women, deliberately leaving “suffrage” out of the title – “lest it bother him,” according to accounts at the time.
In all, 78 female doctors and their assistants risked their lives under the suffragist banner of the NAWSA during World War I, but their stories remain largely lost in history. “There is hardly any information about the female doctors and the overseas women’s hospitals unit, other than the rare mention in an obituary or the self-published pamphlet written by a NAWSA volunteer. “Writes Kate Clarke Lemay, historian at the National Portrait Gallery who chronicles what she found in her 2019 book, Votes for women! A portrait of perseverance.
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“ The bombs rocked the theater of the operating room ”
Suffrage pin made for the American market by the National American Woman Suffrage Association, to publicize their sponsorship of overseas hospitals to care for wounded soldiers in World War I, 1918. Highlighting the important and dangerous work that women physicians did on the front lines, The NAWSA hoped to strengthen its argument that women deserved the right to vote.
Ken Florey Suffrage Collection / Gado / Getty Images
The first unit of the Overseas Hospitals for Women intended to build a hospital in Guiscard, in northern France, but the Germans had invaded it by the time the women arrived. Twelve of them were instead sent to Château Ognon, a 17th-century estate that became a military evacuation hospital outside of Paris.
The French military surgeons who greeted their truck burst into laughter when they saw that their reinforcements were American women.
But the laughter didn’t last long. In the first 36 hours, the women treated some 650 cases. “The injured men started arriving so quickly that there was no time to think about the men or women, just human needs,” wrote Dr Olga Povitsky in a 1918 letter from the Citizen, The weekly newspaper of the NAWSA. Soon the Americans were in charge of entire wards and operated alongside French surgeons.
Château Ognon, located along the route taken by German bombers to attack Paris, was itself bombed during the last German offensive of the war. Dozens of patients, staff and soldiers were killed or injured when the Germans fired 3,000 artillery pieces at the hospital between May 27 and June 16. But the female doctors never flinched. “Bombs rocked the operating room and the barracks. The guns roared and the planes rocked the atmosphere, ”wrote Dr Edward, who operated on more than 100 wounded in 24 hours under enemy fire.
For their bravery, the French government then awarded the Croix de Guerre to Drs. Finley, Edward and Von Sholly and nurse Jane McKee.
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“ We had to do all of our heavy work, including making coffins ”
Other members of the First Suffragist Unit were sent to build a 50-bed hospital in Labouheyre, in southwestern France, to treat refugees fleeing the German offensive. German prisoners of war surrounded the barracks, supervised by carpenter Florence Kober, who spoke German. But the women built everything from supplying the hospital with running water and electricity to equipping it with cupboards and shelves.
“We had to do all of our work, including making the coffins,” Seattle ear, nose and throat specialist Dr Mabel Seagrave later told a reporter. “Our plumber was a former New York actress. Our carpenter had just graduated from a fashionable girl school. Our drivers were all girls.”
Led by Dr Seagrave and Dr Marie Formad, a surgeon from Newark, NJ, the hospital quickly grew to 125 beds and treated over 10,000 refugees during its existence. The Women’s Apparel Association, which represents the American fashion industry, from factory workers to department store buyers, has provided more than $ 100,000 for its funding.
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Treat victims of a gas attack and be gassed
In the summer of 1918, the French asked the NAWSA to send 50 additional female doctors, nurses and assistants to set up a 300-bed hospital in Nancy for victims of gas attacks, as well as a mobile unit that could get to the front lines. NAWSA leaders scoured the country looking for female doctors with relevant experience, but warned applicants: “This service can be dangerous and will require courageous women.”
Among the volunteers were Dr Marie Lefort, a skin disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Dispensary in New York; Dr. Nellie Barsness, ophthalmologist from St. Paul, Minnesota, and Anna McNamara, mechanic, were to drive the mobile unit’s three-ton truck and operate the steam engine needed to heat bath water and disinfect clothing . Several of the women suffered gas attacks themselves, including Dr. Irene Morse, a lung specialist from Clinton, Connecticut, who died of the after effects in 1933.
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‘Thank god you came’
The signing of the armistice in November 1918 did not end the need for medical care as thousands of returnees, many sick, injured and starving, crossed the ravaged French countryside. Members of the units of the overseas women’s hospitals remained for months in different roles. Dr Finley’s group was deployed to Cambrai, on the Franco-German border, where 1,500 refugees returned daily. When she introduced herself to the commander there, he said, “Thank goodness you came,” wrote Dr Finley.
Other American women transformed a bombed-out boarding school for girls in Nancy into a Jeanne d’Arc hospital, where they treated thousands of other refugees. “These poor people arrive on trains that have sometimes taken days,” wrote Dr Lefort. “They have the stalked expressions you sometimes see in animals.”
Several other women’s groups also sent female doctors to Europe during World War I, including the Medical Women’s National Association, Smith College, and philanthropist Anna Morgan, the daughter of JP Morgan.
“These women went through hell … and they became mostly footnotes”
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In all, some 25,000 American women traveled to France during World War I to support Allied efforts. Over 100 have been decorated by foreign governments, but none have ever been recognized by the US government for their service.
It is not known how much their hard work and sacrifice helped the cause of the American suffragists.
After many unsuccessful attempts, Congress finally passed the 19th Amendment, which guaranteed women the right to vote, in 1919. It was ratified by the necessary 36 states in 1920.
But aside from brief newspaper reports, the contributions of female physicians have remained largely unrecognized. “These women went through hell just to have the opportunity to serve,” says Lemay, “and they became mostly footnotes in the history books”.
