Introduction
2012
When you walk into a doctor’s office, do you see more male or female doctors? How about the nurses, more male or female? Do you think women struggled to get into the medical field? Subjects in the medical field were not thought to be appropriate for women to talk about or hear during the Nineteenth century. However, many women still rose up to the challenges and succeeded in getting into the medical field. Dr. Annie Lowrie Alexander was one of those women. Born near Cornelius, NC to Dr. John Brevard Alexander and Ann Wall Lowrie, Annie attended the Medical College in Philadelphia at the age of seventeen. She graduated in 1884, and attained her license in 1885. Since the day she got her license in 1885 till the day she died in 1929, Dr. Alexander practiced medicine. Some challenges Dr. Alexander faced were being a woman in the medical field, as well as being a woman going to college for a medical license. She was not the only woman to face these challenges. Many women have persevered through the struggle of getting into medical school and the medical field. Over the years, medicine and medical school in North Carolina, where Dr. Alexander practiced medicine, have changed drastically. But, had none of this happened, if women were to this day not allowed to practice medicine, would the field of medicine be as advanced as it is already? If women had not been so persistent in attending medical school and practicing medicine, would NC be this advanced? Alexander may have followed in her physician father’s footstep; however, the road she took to get there was a long, hard one.