a biography of the day-mary garrett (suffragist, philanthropist)

[niyad]

A Biographical Sketch
of Mary Elizabeth Garrett.......................................




Early Life and Young Adulthood


In Baltimore on 5 March 1854, Mary Elizabeth Garrett was born into a family that was both wealthy and committed to philanthropy. She was the youngest child and only daughter of John Work Garrett, president of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, the country’s first major railroad. She was brought up in an opulent mansion on Mount Vernon Place in Baltimore. In the mid-to-late nineteenth century, Mary Elizabeth Garrett’s father was one of the most influential men in the country. He became a close advisor to President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and was known as the “Railroad King.” Mary Elizabeth Garrett learned early how to use her great wealth to advance women’s causes in much the same way that her grandfather and her father had built their financial and railroad empires: through clarity of vision, effective strategy, perseverance and, not least, seizing opportunities at the right time.

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But when John W. Garrett died in 1884, the doors of the wider world and the arena of business in which she had played an active role at his side, closed. Because she had neither a husband nor a degree, few paths seemed open to Mary Elizabeth Garrett. Her brothers easily ascended in the family’s financial empires. Her oldest brother, Robert assumed the presidency of the powerful B&O Railroad. He lived in the beautiful mansion at 9-11 Mount Vernon Place with his wife Mary Frick Garrett. Her other brother, T. Harrison, directed the family business, Robert Garrett & Sons, and lived with his wife Alice Whitridge and their three sons at the elegant Evergreen House on North Charles Street.
Mary Elizabeth Garrett inherited a fortune—nearly $2 million and three lavish estates. She was not only one of the wealthiest women in the United States, but also one of the largest female landowners in the country. When she inherited her massive fortune, she vowed to use her money, as she wrote, “to help women” by removing some of the obstacles that had stood in her way. 2
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Garrett had the good fortune to count among her friends a group of intellectually curious young women with progressive leanings. Most of the women came from Quaker backgrounds. They became known as the “Friday Evening”, so named for their bi-weekly meetings at each other’s homes. As a group and on their own, they would effect great change over the next half-century. The group included M. Carey Thomas, Mamie Gwinn, Elizabeth “Bessie” King, and Julia Rogers. The fathers of all but Julia Rogers served as trustees of the Johns Hopkins University, the Johns Hopkins Hospital, or both. This period of Garrett’s life, from 1885-1895, provided incubation for ideas on how to help women achieve independence and autonomy.



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Yet Mary Elizabeth Garrett’s legacy is all around us. Today, almost 50 percent of medical students are women. They are admitted to and educated on an equal basis as men at medical schools across the country. Young women attend college preparatory schools that maintain high scholastic requirements following the innovative example set by the Bryn Mawr School. Bryn Mawr College continues to educate women leaders for the future.
Perhaps Mary Elizabeth Garrett’s most generous gift was in giving to other women that which she had been denied. She might have kept her great wealth for herself. Yet she chose to share her good fortune and her vision for women’s place in society to create new opportunities for women. Today, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine moves forward as an affirmation of her philanthropy and of her work to ensure that women have the same educational opportunities as men, and that the school set and maintain standards of excellence.

http://www.medicalarchives.jhmi.edu/garrett/biography.htm