Jacobi, Mary Corinna Putnam

Jacobi, Mary Corinna Putnam (1842–1906) physician; born in London, England. Her father was the famous New York book publisher, George Putnam. After serving as a medical aide during the Civil War and graduating from the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania (1864), she became only the second woman to take a degree from the École de Médicine, in Paris, (1867–71); while there she contributed articles to various American magazines and newspapers, including some about the siege of Paris and the Paris Commune. Back in New York City she joined the Women's Medical College of the New York Infirmary for Women (1871–1889) and through her lectures, clinical practice, extensive publications, and varied organizational activities, she soon became recognized as not only the leading female physician in America but also one of New York's most influential. She was elected to most of the professional medical organizations (except the Obstetrical Society), among them the Medical Society of the County of New York, whose president, Dr. Abraham Jacobi, she married in 1873. Among her most consistent campaigns was to get women admitted to the leading medical schools such as at Johns Hopkins. She also was in the forefront of those recognizing the need to change social, working, and environmental conditions if the health of the masses was to be improved. A suffragist, her "Common Sense " Applied to Women's Suffrage (1894), was reprinted and used for the battle that eventually gained women the vote.