Mary Putnam Jacobi
Mary Corinna Putnam Jacobi (née Putnam; August 31, 1842 – June 10, 1906) was an English-American physician, teacher, scientist, writer, and suffragist.[1] She was the first woman admitted to study medicine at the University of Paris and the first woman to graduate from a pharmacy college in the United States.[2]
Mary Putnam Jacobi
June 10, 1906 (aged 63)
3
George Palmer Putnam and Victorine Haven
George Haven Putnam, John Bishop Putnam, Herbert Putnam (brothers)
Jacobi had a long career practicing medicine, teaching, writing, and advocating for women's rights, especially in medical education.[3] Her scientific rebuttal of the popular idea that menstruation made women unsuited to education was influential in the fight for women's educational opportunities.[3]
Jacobi was a founding member of the League for Political Education[4] and the Women's Medical Association of New York City, and was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.[5]
Early life[edit]
Jacobi was born Mary Corinna Putnam on August 31, 1842 in London, England. She was the daughter of an American father, George Palmer Putnam and British mother, Victorine Haven Putnam, originally from New York City. She was the oldest of eleven children.[6] At the time of Jacobi's birth, the family lived in London because her father George was establishing a branch office for his New York City publishing company, Wiley & Putnam.[6][7]
In 1848, at the age of six, Jacobi moved with her family from London to New York, where she spent the rest of her childhood and adolescence.[2] Mary was educated at home by her mother before attending a private school in Yonkers. Later, she attended a public school for girls on 12th Street in Manhattan, from which she graduated in 1859. After graduating, she studied Greek, science, and medicine privately with Elizabeth Blackwell and others.
As a teenager, Jacobi published short stories in The Atlantic Monthly from the age of fifteen, and later in the New York Evening Post.[3]
Death and legacy[edit]
After being diagnosed with a brain tumor, Jacobi documented her symptoms and published a paper on the subject titled Descriptions of the Early Symptoms of the Meningeal Tumor Compressing the Cerebellum. From Which the Writer Died. Written by Herself.[3] She died in New York City on June 10, 1906.[6] Jacobi is interred at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.
She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.[5]