Mary Bennett Ritter: An Online Exhibit of a Stanford Medicine Pioneer

Berkeley

1889 view of Berkeley, California

1889 view of Berkeley, California
Courtesy the Berkeley Public Library

Dr. Sarah Shuey had been the first female physician to practice in Berkeley. In 1887, when Dr. Shuey prepared to retire, Dr. Charlotte Blake Brown arranged for Dr. Mary Bennett to take over Dr. Shuey’s patients. Dr. Bennett moved to Berkeley and bought a buggy and a horse named Prince:

When emergencies did not interfere, Prince and I traveled the streets of Berkeley, Oakland, and sometimes Alameda, that I might make bedside visits to my patients. Home for luncheon when possible, the afternoons until four o’clock were devoted to office work. After four Prince and I again set out to make our rounds.

In 1891, Bennett married William Emerson Ritter, a zoologist on the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. That same year, Dr. Mary Bennett Ritter was approached by female UC Berkeley students who inquired whether Dr. Ritter would be willing to give them medical exams - a prerequisite to use the university’s athletic facilities.

Soon local philanthropist Phoebe Hearst - the only woman on the University of California Board of Regents - learned that Dr. Ritter was providing exams to female students for free. Hearst arranged for Dr. Ritter to be hired by UC Berkeley to ensure the continued availability of medical exams for female students. Dr. Ritter also opened her home to female UC Berkeley undergraduates to coordinate their student housing.

“Portrait

1924 portrait of Phoebe Hearst
Courtesy the Special Collections and Archives, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo