The Quiet Feminism of Dr. Florence Sabin: Helping Women Achieve in Science and Medicine

Abstract

This article recounts the quiet feminism of Dr. Florence Sabin (1871-1953), who took pride in women's achievements and did her best to help women in various fields of medicine and the biomedical sciences. She gave advice to women who sought it, and worked to help them get fellowship and research funds, as well as opportunities for post-graduate training. She brought attention when possible both to the pioneers in medicine and women's education as well as to the younger talented researchers. Her goals were modest but real: help the women who entered science receive the best education available; enable them to do research and publish in top journals; get them fellowships; make their accomplishments known to a broader public so that women's achievements in science would be seen as a norm. She did not succeed in all of even these modest goals. The Depression doomed her plans for a women's Hospital which would have given women post-internship training, and few journalists followed up sufficiently on her attempts to bring other scientists to the public eye. Nonetheless she remained optimistic about the improvements in possibilities since her graduate days.