Alice Weld Tallant
Alice Weld Tallant (July 14, 1875 – May 31, 1958) was an American physician and medical school professor. When her employment as a professor of obstetrics was terminated at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, it sparked the "Tallant Affair", in which students staged a strike and several colleagues resigned their positions in protest.
Alice Weld Tallant | |
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![]() Alice Weld Tallant, from the 1911 yearbook of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania | |
Born | July 14, 1875 Boston, Massachusetts |
Died | May 31, 1958 |
Occupation(s) | Physician, medical school professor |
Known for | Croix de Guerre (1918) |
Early life and education
Alice "Elsie" Weld Tallant was born in Boston, the daughter of Henry Pinkham Tallant and Mary Gardner Tallant. She graduated from Smith College in 1897,[1][2] and earned her medical degree at Johns Hopkins University in 1902, with further training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard Medical School,[3] in New York and in Berlin.[4]
Career
Tallant was an intern at the New England Hospital for Women and Children from 1902 to 1905. She lectured on hygiene at Bates College from 1904 to 1905.[4] During World War I, she went to France as one of the directors of the Smith College Relief Unit,[5][6][7] and later worked with Anne Morgan in the American Committee for Devastated France,[8] treating influenza among war refugees; her service earned her a Croix de Guerre in 1918.[9]
From 1905 to 1923, Tallant was a professor of obstetrics at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania,[3][10] and was a practicing obstetrician at Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia from 1905 until her death in 1958. When her reappointment at the medical college was refused without public explanation in 1923,[11] students went on a strike,[12] alumnae presented a petition in support of Tallant, and several of her colleagues, including Ruth Webster Lathrop, resigned in protest. This controversy is recalled in school history as the "Tallant Affair".[13][14]
Tallant was an obstetrician at Philadelphia General Hospital from 1922 to 1928. From 1928 to 1938, she was a social worker and physician at the Joy Settlement. From 1906 to 1950, she was a physician on staff at the Girls' House of Refuge.[4] She served on the executive committee of the American Child Hygiene Association.[15] She was the author of A Text-book of Obstetrical Nursing (1922).[16]
Publications
- "Some Observations on the Occurrence of Broadbent's Sign" (1904)[17]
- "An Obstetric Anomaly" (1908)[18]
- "The Question of Scholarships" (1911)[19]
- "A Study of Ophthalmia in the New-born: With Nine Charts" (1912)[20]
- "'Pre-natal Care' as Conducted in the College Hospital" (1916)[21]
- "The Pros and Cons of Accouchement Forcé in Placenta Previa" (1917)[22]
- A Text-book of Obstetrical Nursing (1922)[16]
- "A Study of the Results in Face Presentations" (1923)[23]
Personal life
Tallant died in 1958. There is a small collection of her papers in the Smith College Archives.[4] The papers of the Smith College Relief Unit include materials related to Tallant's World War I experiences.[24]
References
- Shearer, Benjamin F. (2007). Home Front Heroes: A Biographical Dictionary of Americans During Wartime. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 796. ISBN 978-0-313-33423-8.
- "Smith Freshmen Win". The Boston Globe. 1896-03-22. p. 1. Retrieved 2022-07-08 – via Newspapers.com.
- Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (1911). Scalpel : the 1911 yearbook of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. p. 18 – via Internet Archive.
- Alice Weld Tallant papers, Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History, Smith College Libraries.
- "The Daring Women of Smith College's Relief Unit". The Chapin School. February 26, 2020. Retrieved 2022-07-08.
- Gaines, Ruth Louise (1920). Ladies of Grécourt: The Smith College Relief Unit in the Somme. E.P. Dutton. p. 233.
- "Woman Relief Unit Member Torn with Grief for Peasants". Evening Public Ledger. 1918-03-29. p. 10. Retrieved 2022-07-09 – via Newspapers.com.
- "Women Physicians Going Abroad for War Service". Evening Public Ledger. 1918-05-04. p. 12. Retrieved 2022-07-08 – via Newspapers.com.
- Chrisagis, Ximena. "'Miss Tallant...docteur en medicine': A Woman Physician in World War I France" Ohio Academy of Medical History Annual Conference Presentations (April 2005).
- "Women to Study Health Problems". Harrisburg Telegraph. 1915-12-23. p. 11. Retrieved 2022-07-08 – via Newspapers.com.
- "Medical Alumnae Offer Compromise". The Philadelphia Inquirer. 1923-06-16. p. 13. Retrieved 2022-07-08 – via Newspapers.com.
- "Woman's College Students Strike". The Morning Post. 1923-03-15. p. 19. Retrieved 2022-07-08 – via Newspapers.com.
- "Martha Tracy and the Tallant Affair", Drexel University Legacy Center.
- Peitzman, Steven Jay (2000). A New and Untried Course: Woman's Medical College and Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1850-1998. Rutgers University Press. pp. 147–159. ISBN 978-0-8135-2816-8.
- American Child Hygiene Association (1920). Transactions of the Annual Meeting. Arno Press.
- Tallant, Alice Weld (1922). A Text-book of Obstetrical Nursing. Lea & Febiger.
- TALLANT, ALICE WELD (1904-10-27). "Some Observations on the Occurrence of Broadbent's Sign". The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. 151 (17): 457–461. doi:10.1056/NEJM190410271511702. ISSN 0096-6762.
- Tallant, Alice Weld (1908-03-07). "An Obstetric Anomaly". Journal of the American Medical Association. L (10): 785. doi:10.1001/jama.1908.02530360047016. ISSN 0002-9955.
- Tallant, Alice Weld (July 1911). "The Question of Scholarships". The Smith Alumnae Quarterly. 2: 181–185.
- Tallant, Alice Weld. "A Study of Ophthalmia in the New-Born: With Nine Charts" The American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children 66 (5) (November 1912): 866,
- Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania Alumnae Association (1916). Transactions of the ... Annual Meeting of the Alumnae Association of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. The Association.
- Tallant, Alice Weld (1917). "The Pros and Cons of Accouchement Forcé in Placenta Previa". The American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children. 76: 46–50.
- Tallant, Alice Weld (July 1923). "A Study of the Results in Face Presentations". American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. 6 (1): 116–120. doi:10.1016/s0002-9378(16)42808-5. ISSN 0002-9378.
- Smith College Relief Unit; Hawes, Harriet Boyd; Tallant, Alice Weld; Andrews, Hannah Dunlop; Wolfs, Marie Leonie; Chapin, Anne McClallan; Biddlecome, Elizabeth; Ainsworth, Dorothy S; Bliss, Elizabeth Howe (1917). Smith College Relief Unit records, 1917-1997. OCLC 52253821.