Women’s History Month Tribute: The Perseverance and Achievements of Dr. Emily Dunning Barringer

It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows anything about the life of Emily Dunning Barringer that she was the driving force behind landmark changes for women doctors effected by the Sparkman Act of 1943. Sponsored by Alabama Senator John Sparkman, the act bearing his name allowed women doctors for the first time in history to become commissioned officers in the United States military and to receive pay and recognition commensurate to their male counterparts. The initial hearings for the Sparkman Act concluded in the 78th Congress 78 years ago this week on March 18, 1943.

Overcoming obstacles was the norm for Emily Dunning Barringer. Born in Scarsdale, NY, in 1876, Emily Dunning witnessed the prolonged and troubled birth of her mother’s sixth child, Emily’s younger brother. The birth seemed to have affected her greatly as related on page 28 in her 1950 autobiography Bowery to Bellevue: The Story of New York’s first Woman Ambulance Surgeon: “I truly believe that it was at this time that the great desire was born in me to help the sick and suffering which later was to lead me into medicine.”*

The road to the fulfillment of her dream was long and difficult, however. Nineteenth century attitudes toward women’s education in general and medical education in particular were, to say the very least, unenlightened. Consider what Harvard Professor Edward H. Clarke said about women’s education in 1847:  "Women seeking advanced education would develop monstrous brains and puny bodies and abnormally weak digestion.”** Nevertheless, encouraged by her family and influenced by a family friend and mentor, Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, Emily applied to and was accepted by Cornell University. Upon successful graduation in 1897 from Cornell, she then attended the College of Medicine of the New York Infirmary, which, by her second year there, had morphed into the Cornell School of Medicine.

Emily Dunning graduated 2nd in her medical school class in 1901. She then received the second highest grade on her qualifying exam but was denied admission to an intern program at Gouverneur Hospital in New York City. She applied there again with the boosting of political and religious figures and was finally accepted into the program on the Lower East Side. Continually harassed and humiliated by fellow medical students, Dunning rose to the challenge once again and distinguished herself with her work. On the day following her completion of her internship and residency, Emily Dunning wed fellow doctor, John Barringer. From 1903 to 1905 she was an emergency services surgeon, often riding in a horse-drawn ambulance in New York City. At the time she was the first and only female surgeon on ambulance duty in the world. In her 1950 autobiography here is what Dr. Barringer had to say about her experience as an ambulance surgeon:

Between these two irrevocable markers, the beginning and the end, I was to see every phase of human activity and human emotion, the full gamut of life. I was to see heroism, devotion, loyalty, hard work and honest labor, illness in every form, poverty, hunger, cold; pitiless cold in winter, unbearable heat in summer, in the old tenements reeking with overcrowded humanity; crime in every form, robbery, murder, rape; insanity, alcoholism in all stages; I was to meet the budding gangster, the prostitute and to visit dives where the underworld held out and one reeled under the nauseous opium-laden air. Industrial accidents little understood in those days came my way; men suffering “the bends” or strange deaths from monoxide poisoning, before preventive measures were established (pg.149).

The experience as an ambulance surgeon influenced her activities during World War I  (1914-1918) as vice-chair of the American Women’s Hospital War Service Committee. Barringer reportedly once rode her horse-drawn ambulance up and down the Wall Street financial district, raising money for women doctors to be sent to the front in France and to Serbia during the Great War. In fact, Barringer’s fundraising efforts were directly responsible for sending two women’s ambulance units to Serbia in 1915. The King of Serbia later honored her with a service medal for her actions. Her fundraising efforts also helped finance the purchase of the first motor driven ambulances put into service during the war.

World War II brought more challenges to Dr. Barringer. As president of the American Women’s Medical Association, she refused to accept the opinion of the Comptroller General of the United States that the law permitting the President permission to grant military commissions did not pertain to women physicians. Consequently, she lobbied on behalf of the Sparkman Act of 1943, which essentially reversed the Comptroller General’s ruling, granting female doctors equal status with their male counterparts in the military service—a landmark act on the journey toward equal rights. For the first time in history, the United States began commissioning female doctors as full paid officers. President Roosevelt signed the Sparkman Act into law in April of 1943.

Settling in the New Canaan area later in life, Emily Dunning Barringer wrote her autobiography in 1950. The book was made into a feature film in 1952 (see photo) called The Girl In White starring June Allyson as Emily and Arthur Kennedy as her husband, John Barringer. She died in New Milford on April 8, 1961. A strong and forceful advocate for women's education and equal status with men as doctors, Dr. Emily Dunning Barringer's life stands as an inspirational model of courage, perseverance and justice.

To view a short video tribute to her life, click on this link and scroll to the bottom of the page. (Quicktime player required to see video)

Notes and Sources:

1. Emily's mentor, Dr. Mary Putman Jacobi, earned an M.D. from the Female (later Women's) Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1864. She became a professor in the new Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary.
2. Sladen Library
3. National Library of Medicine
4. distinguishedwomen.com
5. bookrags.com
6. * and ** pagerankstudio.com
7. CT Women’s Hall of Fame
8. Harvard University has the ignominious distinction of being the last private medical school to admit women into its ranks—1945.
9. Iris Noble wrote a biography of Emily in 1962 called First Woman Ambulance Surgeon: Emily Barringer. Numerous used copies for sale in the $6-12 range can be found at bookfinder.com.