Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians Of The Old West - Paperback

by Chris Enss (Author)

A New York Times Bestseller! "No women need apply." Western towns looking for a local doctor during the frontier era often concluded their advertisements in just that manner. Yet apply they did. And in small towns all over the West, highly trained women from medical colleges in the East took on the post of local doctor to great acclaim. In this new book, author Chris Enss offers a glimpse into the fascinating lives of ten of these amazing women.

Back Jacket

NO WOMEN NEED APPLY. These four discouraging words of admonition often greeted female physicians looking for jobs in the frontier-era West. Despite the dire need for medical help, it seemed most trappers, miners, and emigrants would rather suffer and die than be treated by a female doctor. Nevertheless dozens of highly trained women headed West, where they endured hardship and prejudice as they set broken limbs, performed operations, delivered generations of babies--and solidified a place for women in the medical field. Susan La Flesche, the youngest daughter of an Omaha Indian Chief, felt called to medicine when at the age of twelve she saw a woman die because a government-paid doctor was too busy hunting prairie chickens to help. Destitute divorcee Bethenia Owens Adair traded in laundry work for a successful medical practice. Flora Hayward Stanford, the first female doctor in Deadwood, was known to patch up gunfight victims and to treat the likes of Buffalo Bill Cody and Calamity Jane. With a determination and strength of spirit that resonates even today, these incredible women and seven others profiled in The Doctor Wore Petticoats are sure to inspire.

Author Biography

New York Times bestselling author Chris Enss, an award-winning screen writer who has written for television, short subject films, live performances, and for the movies, is the author of Hearts West: True Stories of Mail-Order Brides on the Frontier, How the West Was Worn: Bustles and Buckskins on the Wild Frontier, and Buffalo Gals: Women of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. She is also the co-author (with JoAnn Chartier) of Love Untamed: True Romances Stories of the Old West, Gilded Girls: Women Entertainers of the Old West, and She Wore A Yellow Ribbon: Women Patriots and Soldiers of the Old West. The Cowboy and the Senorita and Happy Trails she co-wrote with Howard Kazanjian. Enss has done everything from stand-up comedy to working as a stunt person at the Old Tucson Movie Studio. She learned the basics of writing for film and television at the University of Arizona and is currently working with "Return of the Jedi" producer Howard Kazanjian on the movie version of The Cowboy and the Senorita, their biography of western stars Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.