New story. New heroine. New character backstory or…history!

Yes, for me, history shapes everything. Today I’m sharing the historical inspiration for Doctor Henrietta Hope, the heroine of my story-in-progress, Healing Hope.

First the backstory/history of why I decided to write this particular story…

While writing Rescuing Raven (my short story that released May 1, 2018, in the Wild Deadwood Tales anthology – with all proceeds during 2018 going to the Western Sports Foundation), I had lots of ideas for who’d taught my Lakota heroine, Raven, to speak English.

The teacher would be a city-trained doctor who’d embraced a unique life traveling among the tribes to administer medicine but also learn more about Native American ways of healing. And she’d be a woman. She was so clear in my mind that I knew she must have her own story.

But how does a 19th-century doctor’s career begin?

I started researching which American colleges would have accepted women as students a decade before my story starts in 1877, and I found…

The Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania

What an interesting (and inspiring) history jackpot! The college was founded in 1850 and was the second medical institution in the world established to train women in medicine and offer them the M.D. degree. More interesting history…

• Smedley’s History of the Underground Railroad cites Dr. Bartholomew Fussell with proposing (in 1846) the idea for a college that would train female doctors. The college was a tribute to his departed sister, who Bartholomew felt could have been a doctor if women had been given the opportunity at that time.
• The first deans of the college were men: Nathaniel R. Mosely (1850-1856) and Bartholomew’s nephew, Edwin Fussell (1856 to 1866). Then the college had a long history of female deans, lasting almost 100 years.
• The first woman dean of this (or any) medical school was Ann Preston (appointed 1866–1872).
• To provide clinical experience for the students, a group of Quaker women (including Ann Preston) founded the Woman’s Hospital of Philadelphia in 1861.
• Originally called The Female Medical College of Pennsylvania, it changed its name to Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1867. In 1970, it was renamed The Medical College of Pennsylvania after opening its doors to men.

Can’t wait to share my frontier doctor, Henrietta Hope’s full story (set in Deadwood 1877) with you soon. Until next time…

Want to read more about the history of Deadwood?

Head to Deadwood Early Years and Thieves in the Black Hills