Isabel Haslup Lamb

Isabel Haslup Lamb (1864-1936), was an American physician and co-founder of the Women's Medical Society of the District of Columbia, with Mary Almera Parsons. She was also reportedly the first woman to drive a car in Washington, D.C.

Isabel Haslup Lamb

M. D.
Born(1864-09-16)September 16, 1864
Laurel, Maryland
DiedJanuary 18, 1936(1936-01-18) (aged 71)
Alma materMaryland State Normal School ; Howard University College of Medicine
OccupationPhysician
SpouseDaniel S. Lamb (m. 1899)

Early life and education

Lamb was born in Laurel, Maryland on September 16, 1864 to parents Susannah Harrison Haslup and Jonathan Waters Haslup. Her great-great-grandfather John Harrison served in the American Revolutionary War with Gabriel Long and Daniel Morgan, qualifying her as a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.[1] She graduated from Maryland State Normal School, which later became Towson University. She graduated from the Howard University College of Medicine in 1897.

Work as a medical doctor

Lamb and her husband Daniel S. Lamb worked for over 30 years at the Woman's Clinic in Washington, DC, serving on the board and staff alongside Ida Heiberger, Jeannette J. Sumner, and Annie E. Rice, among other prominent women doctors of the day, with a focus on the health of poor women of color. According to historian Gloria Moldow, along with her husband and other women doctors of her circle, Lamb was known for working closely and well with Black doctors at a time when medicine was highly segregated.[2] One of her specialties was gynecology.[3]

Lamb was also a medical inspector for the public schools, and ran a private practice. With Mary Parsons, she was a co-founder of the Women's Medical Society of the District of Columbia.[4] She was a member of the American Medical Association, the District of Columbia Medical Society, and the Southern Maryland Medical Society.

Lamb co-authored Rules of Health with her husband.[5]

Personal life
Isabel Lamb when younger

On July 2, 1899, in Towson, Maryland, she married Daniel Smith Lamb (1843-1929), who had been one of her professors at Howard University Medical Center. They had no children. Daniel Lamb became the acting assistant Surgeon General, and a pathologist for the Army Medical Museum. He performed the autopsy on president James A. Garfield.[6]

Lamb was a supporter of women's suffrage, and supported the YWCA.[7] She was active in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and a member of Foundry Methodist Episcopal Church, which later became Foundry United Methodist Church.

Lamb's obituary in The Washington Star stated that she was the first woman to drive a "horseless carriage" (automobile) in the District of Columbia, and that her nickname was "Aunt Carester."[8] She died of a heart attack at age 71, and she and her husband are buried together in Arlington National Cemetery.[9]

References
  1. Darwin, Gertrude B.; Johnston, Sarah Hall, eds. (1910). Lineage Book, National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Volume XXX. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Telegraph Printing Company. p. 152.
  2. Moldow, Gloria (1987). Women Doctors in Gilded-age Washington: Race, Gender, and Professionalization. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. p. n101. ISBN 0252013794.
  3. Lamb, Daniel S.; Lamb, Isabel Haslup (1900). Rules of Health. Clifton Park, New York: Hampton Institute Press.
  4. Moldow. Women Doctors in a Gilded Age, op. cit.
  5. Lamb, D. S.; Franzoni, C. W.; Cook, G. Wythe; Holden, R. T.; Eliot, Llewellin, eds. (1909). History of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia. Washington, DC: Beresford Press. p. 367.
  6. "Dr. Isabel H. Lamb Rites Tomorrow". The Evening Star, Washington, DC. January 20, 1936.
  7. Leonard, John William, ed. (1914). Woman's Who's Who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada ยท Volume 1. New York, NY: The American Commonwealth Company. p. 471.
  8. "Dr. Isabel H. Lamb Rites Tomorrow". The Evening Star, Washington, DC. January 20, 1936.
  9. "Daniel and Isabel Lamb". Army Cemeteries Explorer. Arlington National Cemetery.
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