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Dr. Emily Howard Stowe and Dr. Augusta Stowe-Gullen

A Family Legacy of Pushing Boundaries

By: Inês Almeida

Inês Almeida

Historical Contributor

Inês Almeida is a Portuguese writer who lived in Macau (China) for six years where she worked as a reporter for a daily newspaper. She then moved to London (England) in 2021 to pursue a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing which she concluded, with a Merit Grade, in 2023. She worked for an independent book publisher – Aurora Metro Books – for around two years and conducted all of the interviews as well as wrote the biographies of 25 women STEM pioneers for a book published in-house titled “50 Women in Technology”. She is a reader for London Literary Scouting and ROHM Literary.

History has known some important mother-daughter duos who show that, sometimes, the fight for some rights takes longer than one generation. One of the most emblematic in Canada’s history was Emily Howard Stowe (née Jennings) and her oldest child, Augusta Stowe-Gullen. Together, they paved the way for future women doctors while also fighting for the right to vote and easier access to education.

Emily Howard Jennings was born in Norwich Township, Ontario, on May 1, 1831, to Hannah Lossing Howard and Solomon Jennings. Her parents, successful farmers, came from well-established Quaker families; they were political and spiritual leaders in the community. Emily was homeschooled, just like her five sisters. They grew up being taught that men and women were equal, and their mother instilled in them a love of learning. Emily tended to be a cautious and bright individual, as well as “intellectually competitive.”

Hannah Lossing Howard taught her daughters skills in herbal healing, and Joseph J. Lancaster, a homeopathic physician, was a friend of the family. As a teenager and young adult, Emily was his apprentice while also working on the family farm with her sisters.

In 1846, when Emily was only 15, she began working as a teacher in Summerville, Ontario, now part of the city of Mississauga. She worked in several other schools in the area before applying to Victoria College in Toronto in 1852. Denied admission because she was a woman, she applied to the Normal School for Upper Canada, in Toronto, the only advanced school in the country accepting women. After graduating in 1854 with first-class honours, she accepted a job with the Brantford school board, soon becoming the first female principal of a public school in Ontario.

In 1856, she married John Stowe, who ran his family’s business: the Stowe Brothers Carriage Shop. They lived in Mount Pleasant and had a daughter, Ann Augusta, and two sons. That same year, Emily Howard Stowe started teaching at the local grammar school while looking for places to study medicine.

In 1858, she applied to but wasn’t accepted at the Toronto School of Medicine, as women at the time weren’t admitted to medical schools in Canada. The Canada Lancet explained the reasoning for barring women from the medical profession: “As wives, mothers, sisters and dainty little housekeepers we have the utmost love and respect for them; but we do not think the profession of medicine, as a rule, a fit place for them.”

Shortly after, in 1863, John Stowe became sick with tuberculosis; Stowe had to keep teaching to provide for her three children. She soon turned again to homeopathy. Still unable to be admitted in Canada as a woman, she enrolled in a medical school in New York City, as it supported both women and homeopathy. While she studied, her sister Cornelia looked after her children. Stowe received her degree in 1867 and returned to Canada that year to open a medical practice on Richmond Street in Toronto. She specialized in treating diseases of women and children. Once her husband was well, he joined her in Toronto and set up a practice to work as a dentist.

By the 1860s in Canada, homeopathic doctors or those trained in the United States were required to take further courses and an examination so they could obtain medical licences. Stowe applied to take classes in chemistry and physiology at the University of Toronto in 1869, to qualify for her licence, but was denied entry. It was two years before she was finally allowed into the Toronto School of Medicine.

Alongside Jenny (Jennie) Trout, Stowe became one of the first two women to attend classes there. Trout and Stowe endured sexual harassment, and both students and faculty engaged in discussions that were “deliberately designed to emphasize vulgarity.” “Filth and garbage were piled upon the women’s seats on numerous occasions,” but they persevered and graduated. Still, unlike Trout, there is no record that Stowe ever took the licensing exam required by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

Once Stowe graduated, she opened an unlicensed practice and placed an advertisement in the local papers. Assuming, early on, that her patients would be mostly women, Stowe addressed them directly: “Mrs. E. H. Stowe, M.D., Physician and Accoucheur, respectfully announces to her patients, and ladies in general, that she is now permanently located at N. 39 Alma Terrace, Richmond Street. Office Hours from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.” This meant ignoring the penalty of $100 for those who attempted to practise without a licence. Her practice became successful, and she soon had to expand to a larger space on Church Street.

In the summer of 1879, Stowe’s career faced a new challenge when she was the defendant in a case concerning the death of one of her patients. On August 12, Sarah Ann Lovell, a 19-year-old unmarried domestic servant, was found dead. Her death was shocking, as she had been in excellent health. A postmortem examination concluded that her “uterus was large and contained a male foetus of about five months” but couldn’t point to an exact cause of death. An investigation concluded that prior to her death, Lovell had seen Stowe and had taken medication prescribed by her.

Then 22, Stowe’s daughter, Augusta, confirmed that Lovell had visited her mother’s practice – as Augusta usually assisted with patients’ consultations. If the postmortem exam was correct, at the time Lovell reached out to Stowe for help, she would have been just over two months pregnant. At that time, women didn’t consider a pregnancy established until movement of the fetus was felt – what was called “quickening.” Lovell most likely sought help for what she thought was an interruption of her menstrual cycle. Stowe provided her with a prescription of hellebore, cantharides and myrrh, commonly viewed as effective to promote menstrual discharge. The dosage level prescribed allegedly ensured that the drugs would have a minimal effect. But this combination of medicine was also regarded as “abortion-inducing.”

Stowe was allowed to appear voluntarily in court, and on September 11, 1879, she pleaded “not guilty” to the charge of “administered and caused to be taken by Sarah Lovell, large quantities of certain poisons, to wit, 112 oz. tincture of hellebore, and 114 oz. tincture of cantharides, and other noxious things, to wit, 1 oz. tincture of myrrh, with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage of the said Sarah Lovell.”

Stowe seems to have gained the respect of the medical community in Toronto, as several male colleagues testified to her skills, including Dr. Henry Wright, Dr. Charles Berryman, Dr. Uzziel Ogden, and Dr. Daniel McMichael. Ultimately, the trial resulted in the conclusion that Lovell “came to her death by means of an irritant poison, taken by herself or at the hands of others unknown to the jury for the purpose of procuring an abortion.” This trial led to another not-quite-related result: in July of the following year, Dr. Emily Howard Stowe was formally licensed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

A Feminist and Activist

Aside from being a doctor, Stowe was also a feminist and activist who founded the Toronto Women’s Literary Club in 1876. The first known female suffrage organization in the country, it gained importance and eventually became the Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association, in 1889. Stowe campaigned to have women admitted to medical schools in Canada and also became vice-president of the Canadian Women’s Suffrage Association, which was to be open to both men and women. She presented a motion stating that qualified women should be allowed to vote and spoke extensively, in Canada and the United States, on topics such as women’s rights regarding education, employment, and property.

While she was vice-president of the Canadian Women’s Suffrage Association, Stowe gave a presentation in front of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario regarding the provincial passage of the Married Women’s Property Act, a matter that affected her directly: although she had to pay taxes for a property owned with her husband, only he was allowed to vote. However, the passing of the Property Act – which gave married women the same legal rights as men and allowed them to enter into legal agreements and buy property – was seen by the provincial legislature as a sort of “compensation” for women not yet getting the right to vote.

A legacy of fighting for women’s rights

Stowe’s daughter, Augusta, followed closely in her mother’s footsteps, in both the medical profession and social advocacy. In 1883, at 26, Ann Augusta Stowe earned a medical degree from the University of Toronto, becoming the first woman to graduate from a Canadian medical school. However, even after she graduated, the University of Toronto continued to deny access to female medical students. She was the only woman in her course, and male classmates usually “tried to embarrass” her. Eventually, she was accepted as a peer by her male colleagues.

That same year, Emily Stowe led a meeting of the Canadian Women’s Suffrage Association focused on the need for equal education, which resulted in the creation of the Woman’s Medical College, in Toronto. Dr. Michael Barrett was the first dean. Twelve years after it opened, the school changed its name to the Ontario Medical College for Women. In 1898, the college opened a practice clinic for the students, named The Dispensary, which also offered free medical advice and services for patients.

Ann Augusta Stowe married John Benjamin Gullen in 1883 and spent what should have been their honeymoon in a classroom, having enrolled in a postgraduate course in children’s diseases in New York. There’s no information stating whether the couple ever had children. Once she returned home, Augusta Stowe-Gullen was appointed a demonstrator in anatomy at the Woman’s Medical College, which had been cofounded by her mother. In 1890, she became a lecturer on the diseases of children, and subsequently professor of the same field. She was also part of the original staff of Toronto Western Hospital, founded in 1896, as was her husband. As the first woman appointed to the staff, Stowe-Gullen helped organize the women’s board and served as its president.

In an almost full-circle moment, Stowe-Gullen was a member of the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Ontario Social Service Council, the University Women’s Club, the Women’s Art Association, and the Women’s Canadian Club. Like her mother, Stowe-Gullen was heavily involved with suffrage, temperance, and other social movements. From 1893 to 1907, she was a member of the Toronto Women’s Suffrage Club, which had been founded by Emily Stowe. Once the club evolved into the Canadian Women’s Suffrage Association, in 1907 – four years after Emily Stowe’s death – Augusta Stowe-Gullen became honorary president (formerly known, from 1876 to 1883, as the Toronto Women’s Literary Club, which was co-founded by her mother).

For four years, from 1892 to 1896, and again in 1910, Stowe-Gullen was appointed to the senate of the University of Toronto to represent women in the medical profession, which she did until 1924. At the same time, Stowe-Gullen succeeded her mother as president of the Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association in 1903. In 1935, she was awarded the Order of the British Empire.

Stowe-Gullen was a woman who enjoyed pushing social boundaries and questioning practices. As the first woman member of the Toronto Public School Board – a position she held from 1892 and 1896 – she frequently stood up for female teachers’ rights. In one meeting, a trustee asked if inspectors knew that “female teachers were riding bicycles in male attire,” as he had seen one of the teachers in bloomers, which he considered “a disgrace.” Stowe-Gullen intervened to ask what business it was of any of the trustees how the female teachers dressed. The matter was dropped for the time being, but eventually, the same trustee insisted that inspectors should be instructed to report every female teacher dressed in “male attire.” Not only did Stowe-Gullen defend the rights of women teachers who rode bicycles; she herself wore bloomers while riding her bicycle on Yonge Street in Toronto. It was a public display of defiance.

In 1896, both Emily Howard Stowe and Augusta Stowe-Gullen took part in a mock Parliament organized by the Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association. During the session, women debated motions limiting the rights of men, as Canadian law barred women from certain activities and careers and didn’t allow them to vote.

One of the proposed measures of this mock Parliament was “the ringing of a curfew bell at ten o’clock each evening of the week, warning all men off the streets unless accompanied by their wives.” Another motion aimed to “prevent men from wearing long stockings, knickerbockers, and roundabout coats when bicycling,” as, at the time, when women wore bloomers, it usually led to “accusations of impropriety or scandal.” The final discussion aimed to decide if men should have the right to vote. “The motion was soundly defeated.”

Emily Stowe died on April 30, 1903. The Dispensary was renamed Women’s College Hospital and Dispensary 10 years later. It continues to operate and to promote health equity and innovations in the healthcare system. There are also two elementary schools named after her: Emily Stowe Public School in Norwich and Dr. Emily Stowe Public School in Courtice, both in Ontario. In 2018, Stowe was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. Her daughter, Augusta Stowe-Gullen, died at her home in 1943, at the age of 85. Her legacy is celebrated by the Augusta Stowe-Gullen Affirmative Action Medal, awarded by the National Capital Committee on the Advancement of Learning Opportunities for Women.