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Sarah Gertrude Banks

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Dr.
Sarah Gertrude Banks
Picture of Sarah Gertrude Banks
BornJune 1839
Walled Lake, Michigan, United States
DiedJanuary 10, 1926 (aged 86)
Alma materUniversity of Michigan Medicine (M.D.)
Occupations

Dr. Sarah A. Gertrude Banks[1] (June 1839 – January 10, 1926)[2][3][note 1] was an American physician and suffragist. She was the second woman physician to practice in Detroit, caring for the upper- and lower-class; one of her patients was Clara Bryant Ford. An avid suffragist and friends with Susan B. Anthony, she earned her M.D. from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1873, and also became the resident physician of the Women's Hospital and Foundling's Home (now Hutzel Women's Hospital) in Detroit. In addition, Banks co-founded its Free Dispensary for Women and Children, which provided free medical care and improved staff training. She promoted the first free children's playground with sufficient supervision in that same city, and was among the first women to graduate from her university.

Life and career

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It is only a few years since the idea of a woman entering the profession of medicine and graduating as a doctor was something so quixotic, if not actually absurd, that any girl who alluded to such a vocation was reasoned with and talked to as if she had contemplated moral suicide.

Martha Louise Rayne, What Can a Woman Do, 1893[7][8]

Banks' ancestry can be traced to Myles Standish[note 2] and William Bassett (d. 1667) on her mother's side, and Joseph Banks on her father's side.[10] Sarah Gertrude Banks' parents, Amanda Bassett Banks and Freeborn Henry Banks, were one of Michigan's early pioneers and in 1833 built their home as part of the Underground Railroad.[11][10][8][12] Her parents had six children.[11]

Sarah Gertrude Banks was born in June 1839 in Walled Lake, Michigan, and lived beside a trail Native Americans commonly used.[10][13] In her childhood, she worked as a farmer and attended her district's school.[10] When she turned fifteen, she attended Seminary and State Normal School at Ypsilanti, which later became Eastern Michigan University.[10][2] She became a teacher at Pleasant Lake when she was seventeen, and continued teaching at public schools in Ohio and Michigan until she was 25.[10] She desired to get a profession which would promote the perception of women, and much to her friends' chagrin, began to study medicine in 1871.[10][14]

Banks later joined the University of Michigan Medical School and eventually completed the two-year curriculum of three courses of lectures,[2][15] facing sexism along the way.[10] She earned her Doctor of Medicine degree in March of 1873, graduating along with Emma Louise Call, two years after the first woman graduate of the school Amanda Sanford.[10][8] She became one of the earliest women graduates from the University of Michigan Medical School.[16][note 3] Banks then worked as a physician in Ypsilanti for seven months and then spent a year being the resident physician at the Women's Hospital and Foundling's Home (now Hutzel Women's Hospital) in Detroit.[10][14] The president of the establishment said that her success in caring for patients "has rarely been equaled". She resigned early to accept another job in New Mexico, and then had an arduous journey traveling to there.[10] After a couple months, she returned to her job at the Women's Hospital and Foundling's Home.[8] She later continued her physician work in private and went on to care for indigent people and the upper-class; one of her patients was Clara Bryant Ford.[18][8] At one point in time, Banks became a member of the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society,[17] the American Medical Association, and the Detroit Medical and Library Association of the Michigan State Medical Society.[15] In 1922, the cookbook What to Eat and How to Prepare It by Elizabeth A. Monaghan was published with a preface written by Banks.[19][20]

Banks died on January 10, 1926, due to pneumonia.[2][3] She was buried in the Walled Lake Cemetery.[14]

Activism

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Banks was an avid advocate for the women's suffrage movement, due in part to her being respected as part of the Daughters of the American Revolution and Mayflower Society and not being able to vote in spite of it.[17][8] She also took part in national and community gatherings of women's voting rights organizations, and helped pay for the first gratis children's supervised playground in Detroit.[8] In addition, she worked in organizations to help women get jobs and led in the Young Woman's Home Association, which she co-wrote the Nurse Directory of in 1886.[8] Also, with Florence Hudson,[21] Banks co-founded the all-women Free Dispensary for Women and Children at the Women's Hospital and Foundling's Home on March 1, 1893. It cared for people for free and helped to improve the staff.[8][22]

Banks was also close friends with Susan B. Anthony and Anna Howard Shaw,[17][23] and attended a celebration of the former's 85th birthday, in which Banks read a poem dedicated to her. In 1912, she advocated for a ballot proposal for letting women vote, which failed, although women's suffrage in Michigan would be established six years later.[8]

Legacy

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Banks became known as the second woman physician to practice in Detroit, after Lucy M. Arnold.[21] Banks has been described as "for nearly fifty years one of Detroit's most prominent women physicians" and "one of [Walled Lake's] most notable women".[17][14]

The house the Banks family lived in was later known as the Banks-Dolbeer-Bradley-Foster farmhouse (or simply Foster farmhouse), named after the families who have historically lived in it.[16][11] In 1997, there were plans to demolish the building in order to create a commercial establishment in its place, which was protested by the Walled Lake City Council.[24] It was moved from 999 Pontiac Trail, Walled Lake to 239 Common Street, Riley Park that same year to satisfy both parties.[24][16][13] The farmhouse underwent renovation in 2021.[16]

Footnotes

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  1. ^ Her birthday on her death certificate was June 18, 1839,[4] but one newspaper and her gravestone says she was born on June 11.[5][6]
  2. ^ Seventh generation[9]
  3. ^ There are conflicting sources on the claim that Banks was a graduate of a class of the University of Michigan's medical school that women were officially allowed in. Some sources say that she was a graduate of the first class,[17][18] while others say she was a graduate of the second.[8]

References

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  1. ^ Cambell Hurd-Mead, Kate (1933). Medical Women of America: a short history of the pioneer medical women of America and a few of their colleagues in England. New York: Froben Press. pp. 47–49.
  2. ^ a b c d Gleit, Jonathan (February 15, 2016). "Detroit Suffrage Pioneer Sarah Gertrude Banks". Detroit Historical Society. Retrieved June 28, 2024.
  3. ^ a b Journal of the American Medical Association. Vol. 86. American Medical Association. 1926. p. 434.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ^ Michigan Department of Community Health, Division for Vital Records and Health Statistics; Lansing, Michigan; Death Records. "Dr Sarah Gertrude Banke [sic] in the Michigan, U.S., Death Records, 1867–1952". Ancestry.com. Retrieved June 29, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. ^ The Windsor Star; Publication Date: 12 Jan 1926. "Sarah Gertrude Banks in the Canada, Newspapers.com™ Obituary Index, 1800s–current". Ancestry.com. Retrieved June 29, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  6. ^ "Dr Sarah Gertrude Banks in the U.S., Find a Grave® Index, 1600s–Current". Ancestry.com. Retrieved June 29, 2024.
  7. ^ Louise Rayne, Martha (1893). What Can a Woman Do; Or, Her Position in the Business and Literary World. Eagle Publishing Company. p. 65. Retrieved June 28, 2024.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Dopp, Jakob (August 5, 2019). "In Her Own Right". Michigan Medicine. Archived from the original on June 29, 2024. Retrieved June 28, 2024.
  9. ^ The Mayflower Descendant. Vol. 11. Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendents. 1909. p. 61.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Detroit Illustrated: The Commercial Metropolis of Michigan. Containing a Detailed Statement of Its Bracing Climate, Wonderful Resources and Capabilities. Its Origin and History, Interspersed with Illustrations of Its Fine Public and Private Buildings and Dwellings, Sketches and Portraits of Its Leading Citizens. H. H. Hook. 1891. pp. 130–131.
  11. ^ a b c Mayberry, Sarah (June 16, 2021). "Saving the Foster Farmhouse: First room to open for tours in 188-year-old home". Click on Detroit. Retrieved June 28, 2024.
  12. ^ Feighan, Maureen; Martindale, Mike. "'Piece of history' in Walled Lake That Was Once on Underground Railroad Gets Partial Makeover". The Detroit News. Retrieved June 28, 2024.
  13. ^ a b Cavitt, Mark (February 10, 2021). "Walled Lake community leaders join together to rehabilitate 188-year-old Foster Farmhouse". The Oakland Press. Retrieved June 28, 2024.
  14. ^ a b c d G. Louie, Barbara (2001). Northville Michigan. Arcadia Publishing. pp. 36–39. ISBN 9780738523590.
  15. ^ a b Pan American Medical Women's Alliance, Washington Institute of Medicine (1947). "The Medical Woman's Journal". The Medical Woman's Journal. 54. University of Iowa: Medical Women's Journal: 42.
  16. ^ a b c d Arshad, Minnah. "Walled Lake stop on Underground Railroad also was home to one of Michigan's 1st female doctors". Detroit Free Press. Retrieved June 28, 2024.
  17. ^ a b c d e Michigan History. Vol. 9–10. Michigan Historical Commission Lansing. 1925. p. 259.
  18. ^ a b The Woman's Journal. Vol. 10. Woman Citizen Corporation. 1926. p. 32.
  19. ^ A. Monaghan, Elizabeth (1922). What to Eat and How to Prepare It. Creative Media Partners, LLC (published 2016). ISBN 9781373691514.
  20. ^ "Books and Their Writers". Davenport Democrat And Leader. November 26, 1922. p. 24.
  21. ^ a b Brett Harley, Rachel; MacDowell, Betty (1992). Michigan Women Firsts and Founders. Michigan Women's Studies Association. p. 4. ISBN 9780961939014.
  22. ^ "Meets a Want". Detroit Free Press. March 15, 1893. p. 9. Retrieved June 27, 2024.
  23. ^ Medical Women's National Association (1940). "Dr. Sarah Gertrude Banks". Bulletin. 67. The University of Michigan: 25.
  24. ^ a b Taylor, Louise (April 9, 1997). "Group Hopes to Save Underground Railroad Stop". Detroit Free Press. p. 13.
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