Maybelle Maud Park
Maybelle Maud Park, from a 1900 publication.
Maybelle Maud Park, from a 1900 publication.
BornJanuary 7, 1871
Dodges Corners, Wisconsin
Died1946
NationalityAmerican
Occupationmedical doctor
Known forFounding director of Wisconsin's child welfare department (1922-1923)

Maybelle Maud Park (January 7, 1871 – 1946) was an American medical doctor based in Wisconsin. She served as director of the child welfare department of the State Board of Control when it was founded in 1922.

Early life

Maybelle Maud Park was born in Dodges Corners, Wisconsin, youngest of the eight children of John Wait Park and Sarah Luella Thomas Park.[1] Her older sister Meriel graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1884, and two of their brothers earned law degrees there. Another sister, Dora Park Putnam, was an artist based in Milwaukee.[2]

Maybelle Park attended Carroll College in Waukesha, then the University of Wisconsin, where she earned a bachelor of science degree in 1891. She earned her medical degree at the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1894,[3] and did further studies in Philadelphia for a Master of Homeopathics, granted in 1895.[4][5]

Career

Park presented a paper on the homeopathic treatment of smallpox at the Organon and Materia Medica Society of Philadelphia meeting in 1895.[6] She was elected County Physician of Waukesha County, Wisconsin, in 1897, and re-elected to the post in 1898.[4] She was the first woman to serve as County Physician in the state. From 1901 to 1908 she was assistant physician at the Waukesha Springs Sanitarium.[7][8][9]

Park spoke to community groups on public health topics, and in support of women's suffrage.[10] In an 1896 speech on "Modern Surgery" before the Woman's Club of Waukesha, she explained her belief that "Bacteria will be found to be the benefactor not the terror of the human race, turning noxious, toxic substances into inert forms which can be taken up by plants and in that form again used by animals."[6]

By 1914, Park had moved to Seattle, Washington, where she was assistant medical inspector for the public schools, and served on the advisory board of the Theodora Home, a shelter for mothers and children in Ravenna Heights.[11] She was an officer of the Seattle Council of Women Voters, and a member of the Medical Women's Club of Seattle, the King County Medical Society, and the Washington State Medical Association.[12]

Park moved back to Wisconsin in 1922,[13] to organize and direct the new Juvenile Department[14] of the State Board of Control.[15][16] She inspected orphanages and reformatories throughout the state, and lectured on her work,[17] before she resigned in 1923, when her salary was cut in the state's budget.[18] In 1928 she was back in the Pacific Northwest, as an officer of the Washington Society for Mental Hygiene.[19]

Personal life

In 1907, Maybelle M. Park traveled in Europe with a friend, Miss Kober.[20] Park was living in Seattle in June 1941, when she traveled to Wisconsin to be honored at a luncheon and presented with a "golden jubilee" certificate, marking fifty years since her graduation from the University of Wisconsin.[21] She died in 1946, aged 75 years; her gravesite is with her parents', in Waukesha County.[22]

References

  1. ↑ Wilson, Mehitable Calef Coppenhagen (1900). John Gibson of Cambridge, Massachusetts: And His Descendants, 1634-1899. McGill & Wallace. pp. 386–387.
  2. ↑ Leonard, John William (1914). Woman's Who's who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada. American Commonwealth Company. p. 666.
  3. ↑ "Degrees Given to New Doctors". The Times. May 9, 1894. p. 2. Retrieved May 4, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. 1 2 Thwaites, Reuben Gold (1900). The University of Wisconsin: Its History and Its Alumni, with Historical and Descriptive Sketches of Madison. J. N. Purcell. p. 580.
  5. ↑ "Doings of Women: Woman County Physician". Dakota Farmers' Leader. February 4, 1898. p. 6. Retrieved May 4, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. 1 2 Pierson, H. W. (1896). The Hahnemannian Advocate: A Monthly Magazine of Homoeopathic Medicine and Allied Sciences. Hahnemann Publishing Company. pp. 161–162, 292.
  7. ↑ "Items of Interest". Woman's Medical Journal. 11: 341. September 1901.
  8. ↑ "News of the Alumni". Wisconsin Alumni Magazine. 8: 79. November 1906.
  9. ↑ Hurd, Henry Mills (1916). The Institutional Care of the Insane in the United States and Canada. Johns Hopkins Press. p. 867.
  10. ↑ McBride, Genevieve G. (1993). On Wisconsin Women: Working for Their Rights from Settlement to Suffrage. Univ of Wisconsin Press. p. 152. ISBN 9780299140045.
  11. ↑ Bagley, Clarence B. (2017). History of Seattle, Volume 2. Jazzybee Verlag. ISBN 9783849650247.
  12. ↑ Leonard, John William (1914). Woman's Who's who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada. American Commonwealth Company. p. 621.
  13. ↑ "Large Job Given Woman With State Board of Control". The La Cross Tribune. October 15, 1922. p. 13. Retrieved May 4, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ↑ "New Bureau Chief to Help State's Neglected Children". Wisconsin State Journal. April 16, 1922. p. 36. Retrieved May 4, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ↑ "Medical News". JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association. 78: 1324. April 29, 1922.
  16. ↑ Control, Wisconsin State Board of (1922). Biennial Report of the State Board of Control of Wisconsin Reformatory, Charitable and Penal Institutions.
  17. ↑ "Women Hear Dr. Park on Juvenile Work". The Capital Times. January 26, 1923. p. 7. Retrieved May 4, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. ↑ "Dr. Maybelle M. Park Resigns as Juvenile Head". News-Record. August 1, 1923. p. 5. Retrieved May 4, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. ↑ "Washington Society for Mental Hygiene Organized". The Jewish Transcript. March 16, 1928. p. 8. Retrieved May 4, 2019.
  20. ↑ "Dr. Park in Rome". Waukesha Freeman. May 9, 1907. 1. Retrieved May 4, 2019 – via NewspaperArchive.com.
  21. ↑ "130 U. Students of 50 Years Ago Meet Again". The Capital Times. June 22, 1941. p. 6. Retrieved May 4, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ↑ "WIGenWeb Project, Rural Home Cemetery Tombstone Photos". www.usgwarchives.net. Retrieved 2019-05-04.
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