Amanda Taylor Norris

Amanda E. Taylor Norris (February 6, 1849 – April 27, 1944) was an American physician, the first woman physician in the state of Maryland. After graduating from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1880, she worked in private practice in the Baltimore area, spending nearly two decades teaching at coeducational and women's medical schools there.

Early life Amanda Taylor Norris was born in 1849 in Harford County, Maryland. Her family was well-off, and she was largely educated at home by a private tutor. A plan for her to stay with relatives and study at a nearby school was abandoned when she became homesick. Her father agreed to support her in attending the college. He assumed she would drop out before completing the program, but she graduated in 1880 and moved back to Maryland, establishing a private practice in Baltimore.

While working in private practice as a general practitioner, Norris worked as a professor for 18 years. She then taught at the newly founded Women's Medical College of Baltimore, which opened in 1882. After two years in the school's Throat and Chest Clinic, she became a lecturer and then a professor of pharmaceutical science. After five years in that department, she transitioned to teaching obstetrics in 1891.

Death and legacy Norris became partially paralyzed after a stroke in 1939. A lifelong resident of Maryland, she died in 1944, at age 95. In 1995, she was posthumously added to the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame.