On this day in 1850, the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP) was founded. It was the first medical school in the world for women authorised to award the M.D. It was established in Philadelphia by a group of progressive Quakers and a businessman who believed that women have a right to education and would make excellent physicians.
Originally called the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania, the college changed its name to Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1867, the school trained thousands of women physicians from all over the world, many of whom went on to practice medicine internationally.
120 years after it was founded, the institution became coeducational admitting four men into what became the Medical College of Pennsylvania.
The founder of the institution is William J. Mullen, a wealthy manufacturer turned philanthropist. He was a prominent advocate for prison reform, he worked as a prison agent at Moyamensing Prison and later established the House of Industry in South Philadelphia, a neighbourhood centre that provided temporary shelter, job training, and English-language courses to immigrants and the homeless. Mullen served as the first president of the Board of Corporators of Woman’s Medical College.
