Statesmen, Scoundrels, and Eccentrics: A Gallery of Amazing Arkansans

Ida Joe Brooks

Ida Joe Brooks In the summer of , a very determined woman was packing her bags to leave Arkansas. Dr. Ida Joe Brooks of Little Rock had left Arkansas once already in order to get a medical degree,and in  she had to leave once again to gain a specialty in psychiatry. By that point in her life, Dr. Brooks had already set many records and was on her way to becoming a renowned leader in Arkansas medical, social, and political circles. Born in  in Muscatine, Iowa, Brooks was given a masculine middle name in recognition of her father, Joseph Brooks, of BrooksBaxterWar fame.The family moved toArkansas after the CivilWar,and her father became a leader of the badly splintered Reconstruction Republican Party. With the end of Reconstruction in , Brooks lost all his political power,but unlike many Republican leaders he remained in Arkansas, serving as postmaster of Little Rock. Years later Ida Joe Brooks ran for public office, but from her early years education occupied most of her considerable energies. Little is known of her early education, but she apparently attended local schools and earned a degree from Little Rock University, a private college . In  she became a teacher in the Little Rock public schools. After only four years in the classroom, Brooks was elected the first female president of the Arkansas State Teachers Association. In  Brooks applied for admission to the University of Arkansas Medical Department,then an all-male institution.Though she protested loudly when denied entry because of her sex,the school refused to bend and Brooks ultimately took her medical degree in  from Boston University School of Medicine. Amazingly enough, Brooks maintained her loyalty to Arkansas even after being shunned by the state’s medical school. With her new diploma in hand, she set up a pediatrics practice in Little Rock, commenting , “I am proud of Arkansas, proud of the advanced ground she has taken on many issues, eager that she shall maintain her position  and grow to better things.” In  she became the first woman in Arkansas to open a practice in psychiatry. As noted by the major historian of Arkansas psychiatry,the late Dr. Fred O.Henker,Brooks “was not accepted warmly by the medical establishment .” Indeed, she was rejected for membership in the Arkansas Medical Society, so in her characteristically defiant manner she formed her own society, the Women’s Medical Club of Arkansas. Gradually the medical community warmed to Brooks, and in  she joined the staff of the University of Arkansas Medical School as a professor in the Department of Nervous and Mental Diseases,becoming the first female faculty member. In  she was hired as the medical inspector for the Little Rock Public Schools. Practically every child in the Little Rock schools received an injection at the hands of the tall, brusque doctor wearing a billowing white uniform. The late Booker Worthen of Little Rock once described how intimidating Dr. Brooks could be to a sixth grader. He told of leaving his home on a streetcar one Saturday morning, headed across town to spend the day with a playmate. Suddenly, the streetcar door opened and in stepped Dr. Brooks. Young Booker was too frightened to leave his seat upon reaching his destination, and he continued the ride until Dr. Brooks departed. Though the students found Brooks more than a little scary,in reality she was a caring and highly competent medical professional. She conducted vision and hearing tests for students,and the school district eventually adopted her recommendation to provide eyeglasses to indigent students. She administered Binet-Simon andYearkes intelligence tests for those students she thought might need attention. She was instrumental in establishing the Exceptional School for “mentally deficient ” students in ,the first of its kind in Arkansas.For several years she also served as the psychiatrist for the Little Rock Juvenile Court. University of Central Arkansas history student Gina Bowie has published an interesting article in the Pulaski County Historical Review in which Dr. Brooks is placed squarely in the reform tradition of what historians call the progressive movement. As one might expect given her father and namesake, Brooks had an interest in political affairs. She worked for Prohibition and for decades campaigned to extend the vote to women. In  she became  EDUCATION, SCIENCE, AND MEDICINE the first woman in the state to file for statewide office, running as a Republican for state superintendent of public instruction...