Mary Elizabeth Bennett Ritter

Mary Elizabeth Bennett Ritter was a physician and an advocate for womens rights and public health issues in Berkeley, CA. She was known as a pioneer in her time because women were largely excluded from medical training and employment. Despite restricted access, Ritter built a successful private practice. She also advocated for women in medical professional, training for nurses, and sanitation standards in hospitals and doctors offices. She helped start the Pacific Dispensary, free clinics for poor women and children. In 1933, she published her autobiography, which is entitled More Than Gold in California.

Ritter was born in Salinas, California. She was the daughter of a farmers, William Bennett and Abigail Noble Bennett, who did not support her ambition to become a doctor. Before entering medical school, Ritter earned an independent income, which she saved to pay for educational expenses. In 1886, she earned her medical degree from Cooper Medical College in San Francisco, which is now Stanford School of Medicine.

Source: Wikipedia