Q&A with Lydia Reeder

 

Photo by Andrew Newberg

 

Lydia Reeder is the author of the new book The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine That Changed Women's Lives Forever. She also has written the book Dust Bowl Girls. She lives in Denver, Colorado.

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Cure for Women, and how was the book’s title chosen?

 

A: My great-grandmother was a rural midwife in Missouri during the early 20th century. She provided vital reproductive and healing care for her neighbors and their children in addition to running a farm and caring for her own 12 children. Her life inspired me.

 

I began to research women in healthcare during the mid-19th century, and was blown away by the courage and utter brilliance of the first women doctors. They built the first women-run institutions (hospitals and medical schools) in America.

 

While researching this book, I came up with the title after encountering the terms "woman problem" and "woman question."

 

The Industrial Revolution had rapidly brought about significant cultural changes, including the rise of suffrage and women emerging from the home to work in factories, attend college, and pursue a career.

 

The active participation of women in the professional community, which had previously been dominated by men, was a tremendous cultural shock.

 

The men in charge began to wonder how they would manage the rise of these assertive women. I noticed that one group, the male physicians, was particularly resentful of the success of women doctors.

 

When the elite male physicians initiated a campaign to portray women as biologically unfit for anything beyond motherhood—claiming that their menstrual cycles had a destabilizing effect—it was aimed at eliminating competition and suppressing the suffrage movement.

 

This campaign to keep woman out of the public arena was their solution – or “cure” -- for what they referred to as the woman problem.

 

However, the title also has another meaning for me. As I write toward the end of my book, "While pursuing the study and practice of medicine, Jacobi and her mentors ... confronted head-on society's need to keep women bound to the idea that they were inherently sick. Along the way, they found self-actualization for doing good work." They gained the freedom, or self-cure, to participate in a life well-lived.

Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: I began by immersing myself in everything I could find about the first women doctors: Harriot Hunt, Elizabeth Blackwell, Ann Preston, Marie Zakrzewski, and Mary Putnam Jacobi. I was fascinated by their stories. I took notes, brainstormed using mind maps, created lists, and jotted down ideas on numerous sticky notes.

 

Throughout my research, I encountered many surprising revelations, but one "aha" moment significantly influenced how I wrote the book.

 

My first book, Dust Bowl Girls: The Inspiring Story of the Team That Barnstormed Its Way to Basketball Glory, focuses on a team of spirited young women basketball stars from the 1930s.

 

While researching The Cure for Women, I suddenly realized that the first women doctors needed to support each other unconditionally, like teammates. They were committed to help each other gain medical education, with the ultimate goal of serving the needs of sick women and children and training qualified young women to become doctors.

 

They had each other's backs, made important connections, and secured necessary funding. These women were American pioneers.

 

Q: The writer Olivia Campbell said, “Reeder artfully brings to life the fascinating story of Mary Putnam Jacobi, a visionary physician and ardent feminist whose ambition and perseverance amid ceaseless sexism are truly inspiring. Not only did Jacobi use scientific research to unequivocally refute the sexist claims of male doctors about female inferiority, but she also helped transform medicine into a science-based pursuit.” What do you think of that description, and what do you see as Jacobi's legacy today?

 

A: I was so honored to receive Olivia Campbell’s wonderful recommendation for my book. Her book, Women in White Coats, was an inspiration for me. Her comment about Jacobi is spot-on.

 

In 1868, Jacobi was the first woman accepted into the medical school at the Sorbonne in Paris, the best medical school in the world at the time. While there, she studied under the premier research scientists in the world, worked at their laboratories, and helped write their scientific papers. She reported the latest scientific discoveries to the Medical Record, an American journal.

 

After she graduated in 1871, she returned to America, bringing science with her. According to the Lancet, when Jacobi “returned to the US, she argued that laboratory science should be the foundation for modern medical practice. She championed experimentation and the use of statistics.”

 

She brought science to American medicine. She mentored young women physicians, taught them how to organize, network, and fight for justice. Jacobi was a suffragist, activist, and powerful proponent of women’s rights. Her life was the best argument for women in medicine.

 

Q: Given the current focus on women's health, what do you hope readers take away from the book?

 

A: I want readers to be inspired by the woman who overcame enormous barriers to become a pioneer in women's medicine. Jacobi challenged centuries of unfounded beliefs about women's physiology.

 

Before her study on menstruation, Victorian physicians believed—without any evidence—that women experienced monthly heats or ruts, similar to female dogs. They thought menstruation was a monthly rupture, akin to being stabbed or injured, leaving a woman's body in a constant state of infirmity. A woman’s brain was magically connected to her uterus, which shrunk if she overused her brain.

 

Jacobi’s research found that women weren’t stunted by their health. Quite the opposite; menstruation was like any other normal bodily function, digestion or hair growth. Jacobi’s study led to the beginning of a paradigm change for women: that they have a right to be educated and choose their own destinies.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb