Mary Elizabeth Garrett

Society and Philanthropy in the Gilded Age

Kathleen Waters Sander

Publication Year: 2008

Mary Elizabeth Garrett was one of the most influential philanthropists and women activists of the Gilded Age. With Mary’s legacy all but forgotten, Kathleen Waters Sander recounts in impressive detail the life and times of this remarkable woman, through the turbulent years of the Civil War to the early twentieth century. At once a captivating biography of Garrett and an epic account of the rise of commerce, railroading, and women’s rights, Sander's work re-examines the great social and political movements of the age. As the youngest child and only daughter of the B&O Railroad mogul John Work Garrett, Mary was bright and capable, well suited to become her father’s heir apparent. But social convention prohibited her from following in his footsteps, a source of great frustration for the brilliant and strong-willed woman. Mary turned her attentions instead to promoting women’s rights, using her status and massive wealth to advance her uncompromising vision for women’s place in the expanding United States. She contributed the endowment to establish the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine with two unprecedented conditions: that women be admitted on the same terms as men and that the school be graduate level, thereby forcing revolutionary policy changes at the male-run institution. Believing that advanced education was the key to women’s betterment, she helped found and sustain the prestigious girl’s preparatory school in Baltimore, the Bryn Mawr School. Her philanthropic gifts to Bryn Mawr College helped tranform the modest Quaker school into a renowned women's college. Mary was also a great supporter of women’s suffrage, working tirelessly to gain equal rights for women. Suffragist, friend of charitable causes, and champion of women’s education, Mary Elizabeth Garrett both improved the status of women and ushered in modern standards of American medicine and philanthropy. Sander’s thoughtful and informed study of this pioneering philanthropist is the first to recognize Garrett and her monumental contributions to equality in America.

Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press

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Looking today at the sprawling Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, where twenty thousand students, faculty, staff, and visitors converge daily on a bustling, fifty-two-acre campus, it is hard to imagine a time when the famous medical school struggled mightily to get off the...

Introduction

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pp. 1-7

"I wish Mary had been born a boy!" John Work Garrett, the nineteenth century's great Railroad King, often thundered about his only daughter and youngest child, Mary Elizabeth.¹ His was not the usual lament...

Chapter 1. Garrett's Road

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pp. 8-33

Had Mary Elizabeth Garrett's arrival into the world at 3:30 a.m. on March 5, 1854, been announced in the newspapers - a convention not yet fashionable - Baltimoreans more than likely would have taken little notice. They had far more serious matters to think about. Baltimore, a thriving, polyglot port city, the third...

Chapter 2. Ascension

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pp. 34-67

Perhaps nowhere were personal vendettas and political animosities of the Civil War felt more keenly than in Maryland, the border state that lay geographically between North and South and politically on the fault line of the vitriolic rhetoric over states' rights, secession, and slavery. "It was a terrible time for all on the...

Chapter 3. Expansion and Restriction

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pp. 68-93

The Garrett domain began to extend well beyond railroads, politics, and commerce. In the postwar years, Mary's father purchased some of the most lavish and historic properties in Baltimore and the state. In 1871, following the lead of his friend Johns Hopkins, John Work Garrett purchased Montebello, a historic...

Chapter 4. After Garrett

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pp. 94-123

When Johns Hopkins concluded his cordial meeting with George Peabody in the Garrett home shortly after the Civil War, Hopkins's concerns about how to distribute his $8 million fortune were greatly eased. Following Peabody's advice, Hopkins signed a will and, employing the same model used in the creation of the...

Chapter 5. The Practical Head of the Garrett Family

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pp. 124-149

"Dear Girls," Mary began with her familiar salutation to Carey and Mamie in a letter from Montebello on August 1, 1885.¹ The summer had been unbearably hot in Baltimore, with temperatures of well over 100 degrees for days on end. Mary had escaped to the cooler air of the New Jersey countryside for a few weeks to visit...

Chapter 6. The Scheme

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pp. 150-177

Daniel Coit Gilman and the Hopkins trustees were not the only ones hoping to raise medical standards in the United States. Women had been working toward the same goal for more than half a century. In spite of decades of struggle, they...

Chapter 7. A Pleasure to Be Bought

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pp. 178-206

"The ladies' work is finished," the Baltimore American announced in spring 1891.¹ After more than two years of countless moments of anxiety and elation, the Women's Medical School Fund had reached its original $100,000 goal, far short...

Chapter 8. The Happiness of Getting Our Work Done

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pp. 207-237

"The attitude of those men (J.G. and R.G.) (how I hate to have them bear my name) simply makes my blood boil- How much more has to be done before women's position is what it should be!"¹ Mary wrote the stinging attack in March...

Chapter 9. Wise and Far-sighted

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pp. 238-265

Mary was ignited by suffrage. The movement for women's political enfranchisement, equality, and dignity in a society that treated women as second-class citizens represented the culmination of everything she had worked for as a philanthropist and longed...

Appendix A: Class of 1879, the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania

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pp. 267-

Appendix B: Analysis of the Women's Medical School Fund Campaign

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pp. 268-269

Notes

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pp. 271-301

Essay on Sources

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pp. 303-309

Fortunately for this writer and, it is hoped, for the reader, Mary Elizabeth Garrett's rich and complex life provides an engaging intersection of biography and history. Many topics converged in her life, from the development of railroads and American...

Index

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pp. 311-322

Image Plates

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pp. 323-338

E-ISBN-13: 9781421404103
E-ISBN-10: 1421404109
Print-ISBN-13: 9780801888700
Print-ISBN-10: 0801888700

Page Count: 360
Illustrations: 20 halftones
Publication Year: 2008