Dr. Ann Preston

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/89614666/ann-preston

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Preston

Ann Preston was the first woman dean of a medical school, the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP), which was the first medical school in the world to admit women exclusively. At a time when the medical profession was nearly all-male and considered unacceptably coarse for women to enter, Ann Preston campaigned for her female students to be admitted to clinical lectures at the Blockley Philadelphia Hospital, and the Pennsylvania Hospital. Despite the open hostility of male medical students, and sometimes of male faculty, Preston determinedly negotiated the best educational opportunities for the students of WMCP.

Preston was born in 1813 in West Grove, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia, to prosperous farmer and prominent Quaker Amos Preston and his wife Margaret Smith Preston. One of eight siblings, she was educated in a local Quaker school and later briefly attended a Quaker boarding school in nearby Chester, Pennsylvania. The Chester County Quaker community was ardently abolitionist and pro-temperance, and the Preston family farm, Prestonville, was known as safe harbor for escaped slaves. As the eldest daughter, Ann took on the responsibility of caring for family during her mother’s frequent illnesses, interrupting her formal education. She began to attend lectures at the local lyceum, belonged to the local literary society, became a member of the Clarkson Anti-Slavery Society, and was active in the temperance and women’s rights movement.