Follansbee, Elizabeth A. (1839–1917)
Follansbee, Elizabeth A. (1839–1917)
American physician. Born Dec 9, 1839, in Pillston, Maine; died Aug 22, 1917, in Los Angeles, California; granddau. of Roger Sherman (signer of the Declaration of Independence).
The 1st practicing woman physician in southern CA, was educated in Massachusetts, New York and France; taught at Hillsdale Seminary and at Green Mountain Institute (Montclair, NJ); was 1 of 1st 2 women admitted to University of California Medical Department (1875); also studied medicine at University of Michigan and at Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (graduated, 1877); interned at New England Hospital (Boston, MA); established a private practice in San Francisco; assisted Dr. Charlotte Brown to revamp the Pacific Dispensary for Women and Children into Women's and Children's Hospital, then the only female-founded West Coast hospital; opened new practice in Los Angeles (1883); was also the 1st woman to be a faculty member of a CA medical school (University of Southern California, pediatrics professor and later appointed professor emerita in 1908).