August 2008

Pioneering women spotlighted in presentation

According to Senior Director of the Palmer Foundation for Chiropractic History Alana Callender, chiropractic in its infancy had a large number of women in its ranks, some of whom would go on to lead chiropractic colleges, clinics for severely ill children, and the way for other women chiropractors to follow. Callender outlined the contribution women have made to chiropractic in a presentation to students, faculty and staff on the Davenport Campus this spring.

Titled, "Women Leaders in Chiropractic," the talk discussed how women chiropractors have always had an influence on their profession, particularly in its earliest days even while many other professions remained relatively inaccessible to women. In fact, of the first fifteen graduates of D.D. Palmer's School, six were women.

One of the first women to graduate from Palmer was Minora Paxson, who after leaving Palmer in 1900, counted co-authoring the chiropractic's first textbook and co-founding a chiropractic college among her groundbreaking achievements.

The first person to organize a chiropractic licensing board was also a woman. In Kansas, Anna Foy established the first chiropractic licensing board. Kansas was also the state where, from 1910 to 1920, 40 percent of all practicing chiropractors were women. At the same time, a remarkable 33 percent of all practicing chiropractors in the U.S. were women.

It was Mabel Heath Palmer, a 1905 Palmer graduate, who formed Sigma Phi Chi, the first chiropractic sorority. Since being founded in 1911, Sigma Phi Chi has earned the distinction of being the oldest chiropractic organization in existence.

Barbara Brake, who was the first chiropractor to practice in Australia, studied at Palmer. However, Callender also highlighted the achievements of women who neither enrolled in or graduated from Palmer, including Almeda Haldeman, DC, the first woman to practice chiropractic in Canada.

In both the first and second world wars, with a large number of men in the military, chiropractic colleges heavily recruited women to their institutions. This is reflected in enrollment numbers that show 25 percent of the students in chiropractic colleges were women in 1920, compared to 12 percent in 1989.

Other leading women highlighted included 1942 Palmer graduate Lorraine Golden, DC, who founded Kentuckiana Children's Center and Bobby Doscher, DC, a 1967 graduate who leads Oklahaven Children's Chiropractic Center.

Following the presentation, a question and answer period gave attendees an opportunity to share their own thoughts about the contributions women have made and continue to make to chiropractic.