Mary Ryerson Butin

Portrait from A Woman of the Century

(Problems Women Solved, 1915)

Mary Ryerson Butin (1857-1944) was an American physician. She was the first women to enter the Nebraska State Medical Society.

Early life and eduction

Mary Ryerson was born near Wilton, Iowa, August 17, 1857. She lived on a farm until the age of 18, and then took up her residence in the village of Wilton Junction.

There, with alternate schooling and teaching, she succeeded in nearly completing the course in the academy in that place, until the school closed. Entering the high school, in one year, she was graduated from it with the highest honors.

At the age of 21, she began the study of medicine, with the help and encouragement of the family physician and his partners. She entered the medical college in Iowa City, Iowa a co-educational institution, which at that time had enrolled a membership of 90 men and ten women. From that college, she became a firm opponent of co-education in medical colleges. The following year, she attended the Northwestern University Woman's Medical School in Chicago, Illinois, from which she was graduated.

Career

In the spring of 1881, afterwards entering the South Side Hospital as resident physician. Her duties were so arduous, the lack of nurses making it necessary for her to supply that position sometimes, that, after four months' service, she resigned and returned home for rest.

While on a visit to her brother in Dorchester, Nebraska, her practice became so extensive as to cause her to settle there, where she gradually overcame opposition among physicians and people to women practitioners. There she met the physician Dr. J. L. Butin and they married in May 1883.

Before she had been in the State a year, she became a member of the Nebraska State Medical Society. She was the first woman to enter that society and was received in Hastings, Nebraska in 1882. Placed upon the programme for a paper the next year, she was thereafter a contributor to some section of that society. She was elected first vice-president in 1889. She was a contributor to the Omaha, Nebraska Clinic and other medical journals, and was State superintendent of hygiene and heredity for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), county and local.

Associated with all progressive movements, Butin battled and conquered much of the prejudice against woman in the field of medical science.

With her husband, she was a resident of California for many years, making her home in Madera. There, she was active in all matters pertaining to public health, including 13 years City and County Health Officer, Madera; district chair of Public Welfare, for California Federation of Women's Clubs.

She was a member of Fresno County Medical Society, American Medical Association, and the National Woman's Medical Society, American Association of University Women, the Ina Coolbrith Society of Authors, Fresno Parlor Lecture Club, Business & Professional Women's Club, Madera Women's Improvement Club, and the Business & Professional Women's Club.

External links

• Works related to Woman of the Century/Mary Ryerson Butin at Wikisource
• Estate of Mary Ryerson Butin v. Ryerson, Civ. No. 7381, 81 Cal. App. 2d 76 (1947), California Court of Appeal, July 27, 1947