Mary J. Safford

Mary Jane Safford-Blake (December 31, 1834 – December 8, 1891) was a nurse, physician, educator, and humanitarian. As a nurse in the Union Army during the American Civil War, she worked closely with Mary Ann Bickerdyke treating the sick and injured near Fort Donelson, and was nicknamed the "Cairo Angel" for her service in Cairo, Illinois. After the war, she became one of the first female gynecologists in the United States and was the first woman to perform an ovariotomy. She later taught at Boston University, and was one of the first women elected to the Boston School Committee.

Early life

Mary Jane Safford was born in Hyde Park, Vermont, the youngest of five children of Joseph Safford, a farmer, and Diantha Little Safford. She attended schools in Vermont, Illinois, and Montreal, Quebec. She then returned to Illinois, where she lived with her older brother and taught in a public school in Shawneetown.

Medical career

At the start of the Civil War in 1861, Safford volunteered as a relief worker in Cairo, Illinois, where she became known as the "Cairo Angel". It was there that she met "Mother" Bickerdyke, who trained her as a nurse. In 1862, she accompanied the army of Ulysses S. Grant during the Battle of Shiloh, where she comforted and ministered to the wounded. Later, she served aboard a pair of military hospital ships on the Mississippi, the City of Memphis and the Hazel Dell.

After the war, Safford studied medicine, graduating from the New York Medical College and Hospital for Women in 1869. She also studied at Vienna General Hospital, the University of Breslau, and the University of Heidelberg. At Breslau, she was the first woman to perform an ovariotomy. While studying at Heidelberg, she befriended Isabel Chapin Barrows, the first American woman ophthalmologist. She developed a plan for mass housing centered on a common service area for cooperative housekeeping to reduce drudgery for women. Later, she became Professor of Women's Diseases at the Boston University School of Medicine, where she was one of only two professors of gynecology. In 1875 she was one of the first women to be elected to the Boston School Committee.

Publications Dress-Reform: a series of lectures on dress as it affects the health of women, 1874. Papers, read at the second congress of women, Chicago, October 15, 16, and 17, 1874 : a plea for fallen women, 1874. Lac Defloratum, 1874. The Etiology and Infectiousness of Puerperal Fever, 1875. Pre-natal influence, 1878. Health and strength for girls, 1884.