www. Char l es tonWomenPodcas t . com | www. ReadCW. com | www. I ns tagram. com /Char l es tonWomen In today’s world, we sometimes take it for granted that women hold jobs in fields that were once male-dominated. For centuries, pursuing their life’s ambitions was a right most women were denied. And until 100 years ago, women were even denied the right to vote or to attend the same colleges as men. A lot has changed. Most Americans today don’t think twice about women in fields such as engineering, construction, law and medicine. In fact, most of us will be treated by a female doctor at some point in our lives. So, who was the first Charleston woman to blaze that trail? Sarah Campbell Allan was born in 1861, eight months into the Civil War. She grew up as a child of privilege but, as an adult, was denied admission to the College of Charleston because it was an all-male institution at the time. Instead, she attended Charleston Female Seminary, an elite private school located on St. Philip Street, just around the corner from the college. Its founder, Henrietta Aiken Kelly, established the school after her own attempts to gain admission for women to the College of Charleston had failed. Allan went on to study premedical training at the all-female Columbia College in the state capital. She graduated in 1894 from the Women’s Medical College BY MARY COY A Physician and a Pioneer Sarah Campbell Allan, Charleston’s First Female Doctor feature
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