149) Florence R. Sabin
She was the First Female Professor at Johns Hopkins University, Beginning There in 1903
Born: 9 November 1871, Central City, Colorado, United States of America
Died: 3 October 1953, Denver, Colorado, United States of America
Florence was also the first woman elected to membership of the National Academy of Sciences in 1925.
In 1924, she became the first woman elected president of the American Association of Anatomists.
Florence was one of the first female physicians to focus on research instead of practicing medicine. She focused on embryology and histology. Florence even disproved the original theory of the origin of the lymphatic system by instead proving it begins from the veins in an embryo and grows out into the tissues from there.
She and her sister were raised by relatives after their mother died in childbirth and both received a good education for women of their time. Florence enrolled at Johns Hopkins in 1896 after saving for three years and was one of fourteen women in a class of forty-five.
She published her first research paper while she was still a medical student and became a faculty member in 1903 and an associate professor in 1905 yet when her boss died in 1917, she was passed over for the position by one of her former (male) students.
Her students protested for her, but she was named full professor of histology instead—which was still a first for a woman at the school.
In 1925, she moved to the Rockefeller Institute as the head of the cellular immunology department—the first woman to be a full member of the institute. Once she transitioned to Rockefeller, she finally started to receive the recognition she deserved.
Florence retired in 1938 and yet in 1944 joined the Colorado Post-war planning committee as a medical adviser.
Badges Earned:
Find a Grave Marked
Located in My Personal Library:
Wild West Women: Fifty Lives That Shaped the Frontier edited by Erin H Turner
Sources:
https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/retrieve/Narrative/RR/p-nid/89
https://www.wimlf.org/blog/dr-florence-r-sabin-a-woman-of-firsts
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6653144/florence-rena-sabin