Ann Preston

Ann Preston (December 1, 1813 – April 18, 1872) was an American physician, activist, and educator. As head of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, she was the first female dean of a medical school in the United States of America.

Early life and education

Early life Preston was born in 1813 in West Grove, Pennsylvania 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 part of the Underground Railroad. As the eldest daughter, Ann took care of her 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 movements. She was privately educated in medicine as an apprentice to Dr. Nathaniel Moseley from 1847 to 1849. Unable to attend other medical schools because of their policies against admitting women, Preston entered the Quaker-founded Female Medical College of Pennsylvania (later changed to Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1867) at the age of 38 as a student in its inaugural class of 1850.

Preston graduated in 1851, one of eight women in her class.

In 1868, Preston negotiated with Philadelphia's Blockley Hospital to allow students from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania to attend the general clinics there. In 1869, she made a similar arrangement with the Pennsylvania Hospital, where in November 1869, a group of about thirty students from the Woman's Medical College were verbally and physically harassed by male medical students. Poem, "The Child's Playhouse", 1842

Remembrance "Address in Memory of Ann Preston, M.D.," by Elizabeth E. Judson, M.D., 1873 March 11.