Annie Lowrie Alexander

Annie Lowrie Alexander (January 10, 1864 – October 15, 1929) was an American physician and educator. She was the first licensed female physician in the Southern United States.[1]

Annie Lowrie Alexander
Born(1864-01-10)January 10, 1864
Mecklenburg County, North Carolina
DiedOctober 15, 1929(1929-10-15) (aged 65)
Charlotte, North Carolina
Resting placeElmwood Cemetery
35°14′16.08″N 80°50′53.16″W
Alma materWoman's Medical College of Pennsylvania
Occupations
  • Physician
  • teacher
Known forFirst licensed female physician in the Southern United States

Early life and education

Alexander was born on January 10, 1864, near the town of Cornelius in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.[2] She was one of six children of John Brevard Alexander and Ann Wall Lowrie, descended from the Reverend Alexander Craighead and the Reverend David Caldwell.[3]

Alexander was heavily influenced by her father, also a doctor, to pursue the medical field after one of his female patients refused medical attention because she did not want to be treated by a male doctor and died as a result.[4] She was educated by her father and a private tutor.

Career

Alexander enrolled in the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, [2] graduating with honors in 1884. The following year, she obtained her license to practice medicine from the Maryland Board of Medical Examiners, earning the highest grade among 100 candidates.[3]

Alexander started her own practice and was an assistant teacher of anatomy at the Women's Medical College of Baltimore. She returned to Mecklenburg County in 1887 to practice medicine,[5] and in 1889 she bought a home in Charlotte, North Carolina. She slowly built up her practice, making her rounds on a horse-drawn buggy before purchasing an automobile in 1911.[3]

Alexander did postgraduate work at New York Polyclinic. Female physicians were not generally accepted in the late 1800s. Her work so shocked some of her relatives that they asked that her name not be mentioned in their presence.[6]

Alexander worked as a physician at the Presbyterian College for Women (now Queens University of Charlotte) for twenty-three years.[7] During Alexander's time in Charlotte, there were outbreaks of malaria and typhoid fever as well as a hookworm epidemic.[3]

During World War I, Alexander was a first lieutenant in the United States Army[1] and was appointed acting assistant surgeon at Camp Greene in Charlotte, where she performed medical inspections of the school children and grappled with the devastation wrought by the 1918 flu pandemic.[8]

Alexander served as president of the Mecklenburg Medical Society and was a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Charlotte Woman's Club, and the Daughters of the American Revolution.[3]

Death

Alexander died on October 15, 1929, in Charlotte of pneumonia contracted from a patient.[3] In 2022, she was commemorated with a statue by Jane DeDecker along Little Sugar Creek in Charlotte, North Carolina.[2][9]

Further reading

References
  1. Goodpasture, Joe (November 2007). "Call Her Doctor: The South's first female physician was a true pioneer". Charlotte Magazine.
  2. Limehouse, Jonathan (6 June 2022). "Charlotte unveils statue of Dr. Annie Alexander, the first female physician to practice in NC". The Charlotte Observer. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  3. Cohn, Scotti (2012). More Than Petticoats: Remarkable North Carolina Women. Globe Pequot. pp. 82–92. ISBN 978-0-7627-6445-7.
  4. "Annie Lowrie Alexander (1864-1929)".
  5. Censer, Jane Turner (2003). The Reconstruction of White Southern Womanhood, 1865-1895. Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press. p. 155. ISBN 978-0-8071-2921-0.
  6. Steelman, Ben (June 20, 1999). "Book packed full of 'History'". Star-News.
  7. Kratt, Mary Norton (1992). "Is There A Doctor?". Charlotte, Spirit of the New South. John F. Blair. p. 160. ISBN 978-0-89587-095-7.
  8. Powell, William S., ed. (1988). Dictionary of North Carolina Biography: Vol. 1, A-C. Chapel Hill u.a.: Univ. of North Carolina Pr. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-8078-1329-4.
  9. "North Carolina's first female physician statue added to Charlotte's Trail of History". Charlotte Media Group. 6 June 2022. Retrieved 2022-07-11.
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