Mary H. Stinson, M.D.

During the 19th century, the practice of psychiatry in the U.S. was based in the mental hospital system. Asylum superintendents voiced divided opinions about employing women doctors, but legislatures, especially in New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, mandated they hire women.

The earliest record of employment of a woman physician in an institution for the insane in the U.S. was the hiring of Dr. Stinson in 1869 at Worcester State Hospital in Massachusetts.

 

Photo courtesy of Drexel University, College of Medicine, Archives & Special Collections