Dr. Halle Tanner Dillon Passed the Test

I've written before on this blog about Dr. Halle Tanner Dillon, "the first certified, practicing female physician in Alabama". Dr. Dillon was a fascinating individual, the daughter of Benjamin Tanner, a prominent African-American minister in Pennsylvania and the sister of painter Henry O. Tanner. She graduated from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1891, the only black in her class. 

She was recruited by Booker T. Washington to become the physician at Tuskegee Institute, and she agreed. However, first she had to pass Alabama's certification exam, a grueling test that took place over several days and involved prominent white male physicians as examiners. At the time just a few black male doctors had passed the test and were practicing in Alabama. Washington arranged for her to be tutored by one of them, an old friend, Montgomery physician Cornelius Dorsette.  She passed the test. 

You can read more details about her life and career in the blog post I linked to in the first sentence. I've recently come across the two newspaper articles below that I have not seen before and which offer information about Dillon's examination. 

The earliest and second one below is from the Washington Bee on October 3, 1891. That District of Columbia newspaper was primarily read by African-Americans. The article is actually a reprint, with no author give, from the Alabama Exchange. I have been unable to locate any information about that publication; perhaps it was a short-lived African-American paper in the state. 

Booker T. Washington expected Dillon to start work at Tuskegee on September 1, so this article notes she "applied" to the state medical board on August 17. She took the exam in the state health office in Montgomery, "in which she was required to write the answers, without referring to any book of reference". Her answers were scored on ten different topics by ten examiners, all white male physicians. The testing ended August 25. See my previous blog post for more details.

Dillon made a total of 78.81 and a 75 minimum was required, the article states. She will teach anatomy and hygiene at Tuskegee in addition to her clinical duties. "She had a good literary education, having spent six years in college, writes a masculine hand, and it is stated that her examination was very creditable." 

The second article by date [first one shown below], was published in the Capital City Courier in Lincoln, Nebraska. This piece has an attributed author, Lida Rose McCabe, a white journalist best known as the first female reporter to visit the gold fields in Alaska. Her article was filed from Philadelphia on November 5, and appeared in the Courier two days later.

"Alabama has now its first woman physician," McCabe wrote. Some of Dillon's background is included. Before her first marriage she worked as a bookkeeper for the Christian Recorder. Founded in 1852 by the African Episcopal Methodist Church, it is the oldest continuously published African-American newspaper in America. Her father was a minister in that church. "She spent her leisure hours reading medicine", McCabe wrote. She entered medical school after the death of her first husband. "Dr. Dillon was subjected to one of the severest ordeals" in state history--presumably state medical examination history, which had begun in 1877. McCabe notes the reluctance of the state's conservative medical professionals to admit black doctors unless "fully qualified". However, "Mrs. Dillon was courteously received."

McCabe states with no exceptions that Dillon was Alabama's first female physician. The earlier Bee article claims that Dillon was the first female certified by the state medical board, and that another female physician had been certified by the Jefferson County medical board at an earlier date. Under the 1877 law governing medical practice in Alabama, a candidate could take the exam either in Montgomery at the state board or before any county board. This arrangement allowed county medical societies to retain some power.

The white physician named as certified in Jefferson County was Anna M. Longshore [1829-1912]. Like Dillon, she came from a prominent family. Her father Joseph, a physician, helped establish the Woman's Medical College that Dillon would graduate from four decades later. Anna and her cousin Hannah were among the eight women in the first class of 1852. 

Longshore did indeed take the exam in Jefferson County, but the Transactions of the Medical Association for 1892 [p.142] list her as "certificate refused." Thus Longshore may have been the first woman to take a certification exam in Alabama, but she did not pass. See my earlier post on Dillon for more about Longshore's long career as a physician and lecturer on medical topics. Why she came to Alabama to take the exam remains a mystery.

Another question is why Dillon took the exam in Montgomery and not in Macon County where Tuskegee Institute is located. Perhaps Washington and Dorsette wanted her to attempt the test in the state capital, before prominent white physicians, where a successful effort would receive more attention. 

As I noted in my original blog post on Dr. Dillon, she "was not the first female physician in Alabama, but the first to be certified by the state examination process under the law passed in 1877. In the 1850s Louisa Shepard graduated from her father's medical school in Dadeville, the Graefenberg Medical Institute. The school closed in 1861 after graduating some 50 students, including two of Louisa's brothers. She never practiced medicine; she married William Presley and they moved to Texas. Louisa died in 1901."

Source: Capital City Courier [Lincoln, Nebraska] 7 November 1891
via Chronicling America

Source: Washington [D.C.] Bee 3  October 1891

via Chronicling America

Dillon's exam August 17-25, 1891, is available online via the Alabama Department of Archives and History. 

The First Certified, Practicing Female Physician in Alabama

With women currently comprising half of all medical students nationwide, it is strange to think of a time in Alabama with no female doctors. Yet, in the late 1800s the idea of women physicians was controversial in Alabama. In 1872 and 1880, several speakers expressed opposition to women physicians in speeches at the state medical association's annual meeting.

However, by 1890 things were changing. The number of female physicians had grown nationwide, and the stage was set for women to enter the profession in Alabama. At that time, Booker T. Washington needed a resident physician at Tuskegee Institute. Halle Tanner Dillon had just graduated with honors from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania as the only African-American in her class. Washington wrote

Twenty-four year old Dillon had been born Halle Tanner, the daughter of Benjamin Tanner, a prominent African Methodist Episcopal Church minister. Her brother Henry O. Tanner would become a well-known artist. She had married Charles Dillon of Trenton, New Jersey in 1886, and had given birth to a daughter the following year. Her husband Charles died soon after the daughter's birth.

Booker T. Washington accepted Dillion for the resident physician position. She was to begin on September 1, 1891, but she had to pass the Alabama certification exam first. Washington knew the exam would be difficult for Dillon. She would have to spend several days answering hundreds of questions from the white male members of the board of examiners. So Washington arranged for her to study with his old friend Montgomery physician Cornelius Nathaniel Dorsette, one of the earliest certified black physicians in Alabama.

Born in North Carolina in the early 1850s, Dorsette had been a classmate of Washington's at Hampton Institute and graduated from the University of Buffalo Medical School in 1882. After Dorsett's graduation, Washington had persuaded him to come south and set up practice as the first licensed African-American physician in Montgomery and one of the first in the state.

After her period of study with Dorsette, Dillon sat for the medical licensure examination. The test began in Montgomery on August 17, 1891, and concluded on August 25. During those days she was examined on ten subjects by ten different examiners. Among those examiners were some of the most prominent physicians in Alabama.

Dr. Peter Bryce, superintendent of Alabama Hospital for the Insane since 1860, tested her on medical jurisprudence. Dr. Jerome Cochran, state health officer and the primary force behind the Medical Licensure Act of 1877, examined Dr. Dillon in chemistry. Her examiner in natural history and diagnosis of diseases was Dr. George A. Ketchum, Dean of the Medical College of Alabama from 1885 until his death in 1906; he was also involved in creating the Medical Association of the State of Alabama in 1847. Dr. James T. Searcy, her examiner in hygiene, became superintendent of the state's hospital for the insane the following year after Dr. Bryce's death. Dillon was examined in obstetrical operations by Dr. J.B. Gaston, who had served as president of the state medical association in 1882.

Dillon passed the examinations and went on to serve at Tuskegee from September 1, 1891 until sometime in 1894. During her tenure she was responsible for the medical care of 450 students, as well as for 30 officers and teachers along with their families. Johnson was expected to make her own medicines, while teaching one or two classes each term. She was paid six hundred dollars per year plus room and board and was allowed one one-month vacation per year.

In 1894 Dillon married Reverend John Quincy Johnson, a mathematics teacher at Tuskegee. The following year Reverend Johnson was named President of Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina. In 1900 he became pastor of an AME church in Nashville. The Johnsons had three sons. Dr. Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson died on April 26, 1901, of dysentery and childbirth complications; she was 37. Apparently she had ceased the practice of medicine after her second marriage.

The state medical society's transactions had noted that Dillon was the first African-American woman examined in Alabama. Does that phrasing imply that the board had previously examined a white woman? At some point between April 1891 and April 1892, Dr. Anna M. Longshore took the certification examination, but did not pass. One source claims that Dr. Longshore remained in Alabama to practice without a license, but that has not been confirmed. What is known is that Dr. Longshore came to Alabama to take that examination after a long career in medicine elsewhere.

Anna Longshore Potts, M.D.

Longshore was a member of the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania's first graduating class in 1851. After marrying Lambert Potts and establishing a lucrative practice in Pennsylvania, and then in Adrian, Michigan, she began to give talks on health topics to private groups of her patients. By 1876 Dr. Longshore-Potts had moved her talks to public venues. These efforts were so successful that she took her lectures on women's health topics on the road, appearing to great acclaim in San Francisco in 1881, followed by other west coast cities.

Thus when she came to Alabama in 1891 or 1892 to take the physician certification exam, Dr. Longshore-Potts had already established a successful career as a doctor, followed by another career as medical lecturer that had made her both famous and wealthy. We can only speculate as to why this successful woman, in her early 60s, took this arduous test under her maiden name. Perhaps Dr. Longshore-Potts saw herself as some sort of pioneer in this situation; yet what is known about her activities elsewhere does not give us a portrait of a radical reformer.

A few other women physicians appeared in Alabama before 1900, including Annie Louise Farrington, Justina Lorena Ford, and Ella Elizabeth Barnes. Several more were practicing by World War I. See the links below for more information.

Dr. Dillon was not the first female physician in Alabama, but the first to be certified by the state examination process under a law passed in 1877. In the 1850s Louisa Shepard graduated from her father's medical school in Dadeville, the Graefenberg Medical Institute. The school closed in 1861 after graduating some 50 students, including two of Louisa's brothers. She never practiced medicine; she married William Presley and they moved to Texas. Louisa died in 1901.


Early Black Physicians in Alabama

Early Female Physicians in Alabama


An earlier version of this post appeared in the Birmingham Medical News in 2012.