Nancy Talbot Clark Explained

Nancy Talbot Clark
Birth Date:May 22, 1825
Birth Place:Sharon, Massachusetts
Death Place:Haverford Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania
Profession:Physician
Known For:Second woman in the United States to graduate medical school
Alma Mater:Case Western Reserve University

Nancy Elizabeth Talbot Clark Binney (May 22, 1825July 28, 1901) was the second woman to earn a medical degree in the United States from a recognized (non-sectarian or allopathic) medical institution after Elizabeth Blackwell, graduating in 1852,[1] and the first woman to earn a medical degree from Case Western Reserve University Medical School, then known as the Cleveland Medical College of the Western Reserve College.

Biography

Nancy was born on May 22, 1825, in Sharon, Massachusetts to Joasiah Talbot and Mary Richards Talbot as the seventh child of five boys and five girls. Her brother was the homeopath Israel Tinsdale Talbot.[2]

In 1845, she married dentist Champion Clark, then bore a daughter who died within a year. Her husband succumbed to typhoid fever dying in March 1848.[3] She found her way to Cleveland, Ohio where under the leadership of Dean Delamater, she became the first female graduate of the Cleveland Medical College (now Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine), in 1852.

Israel Tinsdale Talbot wrote of his sister's graduation, which he attended,

Clark returned to Massachusetts, where she practiced medicine in Boston from April 1852 to August 1854 but stopped after she was unsuccessful in gaining admission to the Massachusetts Medical Society due to being a woman. In 1856, she married Amos Binney of Boston and had six children. After raising the family, she returned to medicine in 1874 opening a free dispensary for women in Boston.

Nancy died in 1901 and was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

External links

Notes and References

  1. Dr. Nancy E. (Talbot) Clark. FREDERICK C.. WAITE. 17 December 1931. New England Journal of Medicine. 205. 25. 1195–1198. 10.1056/NEJM193112172052507.
  2. Book: Kirschmann . Anne Taylor . A vital force : women in American homeopathy . 2004 . New Brunswick, New Jersey . Rutgers University Press . 978-0-8135-3320-9.
  3. Web site: Nancy Talbot Clark and her sisters at Western Reserve in the 1850s: pioneers of medical education of American women. 17 March 2015.