“No Small Part”: Utah Women in Medicine, Nursing, & Midwifery, 1873 – 1930
Sharing What They Learned
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, female doctors in Utah shared what they had learned in medical school through a variety of efforts, focused specifically on educating women. The medical women taught formal courses in nursing and midwifery, gave informal lectures, and published journals, articles, and books. Formal courses and informal lectures were often coordinated with the Relief Society both at the Church and individual congregation level. The physicians shared information about a wide variety of topics related to health, including anatomy, physiology, pregnancy, childbirth, care of children, hygiene, and nutrition.
Ellis Shipp and Romania Penrose, highly active in these efforts to educate, traveled east to obtain medical degrees after they had settled in Utah. Two other doctors, Hannah Sorensen and Ellen Ferguson, received medical training before they immigrated to Utah.
Shipp and Pratt regularly advertised their classes in obstetrics and nursing in the Woman’s Exponent, an unofficial publication of the Relief Society published from 1872 – 1914.
An advertisement published on March 1, 1896, for Shipp’s spring and summer session stated:
“The high standard of Dr. Ellis R. Shipp’s School of Obstetrics is evidenced by the large numbers that attend her classes, their superior attainments, and their successful practical work
throughout the state of Utah and in adjacent states and territories. . . . Because of the growing demand for efficient nurses and competent accoucheurs the doctor devotes more of her time to the instruction of her pupils, at the same time has made special prices to societies who have interested themselves in this philanthropic work.”
Relief Societies often assisted students with tuition and book fees.
Medical classes
Women in medicine began sharing what they learned as early as 1879, as shown in this advertisement for a medical class taught by Ellis Shipp. In 1880, Romania Pratt offered a 5-month long course in obstetrics that cost $30. The Relief Society subsidized course fees in many cases.
In 1888, sister wives Ellis Shipp and Margaret Shipp (later Roberts), along with their husband Milford, established Utah’s first medical journal, The Salt Lake Sanitarian. Written for the general public, the intent was “to educate the people in the laws of life and sanitation.” Diseases and medical issues were the most common topic, and the health of children was frequently addressed. About two thirds of the content was reprinted from other publications. Sadly, the journal ended in 1890 with no explanation given to its readers. Historians have speculated that marital trouble (Margaret and Milford divorced at about this time) and reprint accessibility (the articles could be long and technical) could have contributed to the death of The Salt Lake Sanitarian.
This advertisement for The Sanitarian is from the May 1, 1888, issue of the Woman’s Exponent. It states the purpose of the journal, includes a subscription cost ($2/year), and solicits support.
The poetic nautical references in this section probably originate with Ellis, who played on her last name in titling her published book of poetry Life Lines (link to the section of the page that is about this book Life Lines)
Maternal and infant mortality rates came to the attention of Clarissa Smith Williams, the General Relief Society President from 1921-1928. In this article titled “Recommendations of General Board Respecting Maternity and Health,” the Relief Society General Board suggested that local Relief Societies use wheat interest funds to create maternity chests and maternity bundles. In addition to this diagram of suggested organization, the article recommends nurses assist with the care of the materials, provides instructions for keeping the materials sanitary, and includes lists of recommended materials.
After Jane Skolfield graduated from Denver and Gross Medical College in 1907, she worked as supervisor of the LDS Hospital nursing school for 25 years. In this 1924 article in the Relief Society Magazine about infectious diseases, Skolfield educated readers about the dangers of measles, diphtheria, smallpox, whooping cough, and chicken pox. She advocates for quarantine laws and school nurses. Some of her concerns are eerily familiar to the modern reader from the recent COVID-19 pandemic, for example: “Perhaps many of you feel that the quarantine is imposed for too long a period” and “here, where we have free thought and free speech and can determine what we want, we sometimes have a hard time to control the disease.
Hannah Sorensen
Hannah Sorensen studied medicine and practiced obstetrics in Denmark. After she joined the Church in 1883, she lost her job and her family was fractured. Sorensen traveled to Utah, and joined the ranks of women doctors who educated their fellow Saints. Learn more about Hannah in her own words in this Life Sketch published in the August 1890 issue of the Young Woman's Journal.
Hannah Sorensen wrote Notes Written for the Benefit of Members of the Women's Hygienic Physiologic Reform Classes for her students, for two reasons: 1) she didn’t agree with any of the available medical texts, preferring a more holistic approach to women’s health, and 2) she wanted her students to be able to take something home with them after the class was completed.
In the preface to What Women Should Know, Sorensen states that she has found “almost UNIVERSAL ignorance in regard to a knowledge of the needs peculiar to their sex.” This book is a result of her “burning desire to disseminate a few fundamental principles to women in general, through which they might escape many ills.” The book includes references to the Creator and the gospel as it covers female anatomy and physiology, as well as pregnancy, labor, delivery, and postnatal care of the mother and baby; proper nutrition, air, water, bathing, dress, and posture; and, care of children, including moral and social training as well as household economy. Near the end of the text Sorensen instructs readers in nursing skills to be used in the home. Much of Sorensen’s lifestyle advice seems antiquated to modern readers; for example, “Do not, at any time, lie down and read.” (p. 51)