Biography of mary walker movie
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To learn about Dr. Mary Walker, an extraordinary figure who once lived right here in Oswego, gave them a valuable perspective on what it means to break through societal barriers. She worked first as a nurse in the improvised hospital in the U.S. Patent Office. President Jimmy Carter restored Mary’s Medal of Honor in 1977.
Vocabulary
- abolition: The legal end of slavery.
For the remainder of the Civil War, Mary served at the Louisville Women’s Prison Hospital and an orphan asylum in Clarksville, Tennessee. She was finally released as part of a prisoner-of-war exchange. Discovering the wives and mothers of soldiers on Washington park benches, Walker helped to found the Women’s Relief Association.
How would her experience have been different if she was a man?
- Why was Dr. Mary Walker never fully accepted by the leaders of the women’s suffrage movement?
When the Civil War broke out, Dr. Walker traveled to Washington to offer her services.
- Medal of Honor: The highest military honor in the United States. Suffragist organizations initially praised Dr. Walker for her Civil War service. In 1863, she went to Tennessee where she was briefly attached as a surgeon to an Ohio Regiment.
In 1862, she began working in Virginia. In 1919 Mary passed away from an illness. Through the efforts of her grandniece and some members of Congress, her Medal of Honor was officially restored to her on June 10, 1977. She was extremely proud of her medal and wore it often, especially when speaking in public.
Beginning in 1867, Dr.
Walker’s activities become increasingly political. For a period of time between April and August of 1864, Dr. Walker was a prisoner of war who was exchanged for a Confederate officer. After practicing briefly in Ohio, Dr. Walker married a fellow physician, Albert Miller. She was an outspoken opponent of alcohol and tobacco use but very tolerant in her religion.
She left service in 1865 and served for a brief time as surgeon of a Women’s Prison Hospital in Louisville, KY. A short time later Dr. Walker was awarded the first Congressional Medal of Honor for Meritorious Service ever awarded to a woman.