Dr. Clemence Lozier was born Clemence Sophia Harned on December 11, 1812 in Plainfield, NJ. Her name, pronounced Clemency, means mercy, while her middle name means wisdom, two traits which came to define her.
Her interest in medicine was handed down by her mother, a trained midwife who studied healing with the Native Americans in Virginia. Her mother was much sought after in their neighborhood as a medicine woman. From her father, a farmer, she inherited her Methodist faith, which remained strong throughout her life.
The youngest of thirteen children, Clemence was orphaned at the age of eleven, and sent to live at Plainfield Academy. At seventeen, she left to marry Abraham Lozier, a builder in New York City.
When her husband became ill and was unable to work, Clemence opened a school for girls in her home which she ran for more than a decade. Due to her introduction of the subjects of anatomy and physiology to her students, her school became very popular, especially among the upper classes in the city who wanted their daughters to learn these important topics.
Over the years, Clemence gave birth to seven children, but only the last one, her son Abraham, lived past childhood. She was widowed, and eventually remarried, but it was an unhappy marriage and Clemence divorced him. This was very unusual for the time period, and she always credited it to an essay she read on the topic by her future friend, Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
When she heard of Elizabeth’s Blackwell’s success in obtaining a medical degree, Clemence tried to do the same, applying to many schools, including Geneva College which had granted Blackwell entrance. But the college had learned from its mistake and would not allow another woman to attend. Eventually she convinced the Rochester Eclectic College to allow her to matriculate. The college moved and merged with other medical schools, but Clemence eventually earned her degree in 1853, graduating from Syracuse Medical College as its valedictorian.
Upon moving back to New York City, she took up work with the Female Moral Reform Society, and opened her own practice, where she found much success. While Elizabeth Blackwell made around sixty-five dollars a year in her work as a doctor, her son reported that his mother made as much as twenty thousand. She was a successful surgeon, as well as an advocate of homeopathy, and most days she had a line of patients waiting outside the door of her office.
Almost entirely self-funded, Dr. Lozier opened The New York Medical College and Hospital for Women in 1863. It was the first medical college in the state, opening several years before Blackwell’s. More than 200 women graduated from her school, some coming from as far away as Canada and Brazil.
Her home was also a mecca for all kinds of reformers. The Anti-Slavery Society held its meetings in her parlor for several years, and she supported temperance, Native American rights, and the peace movement among many other causes.
Dr. Lozier was also a suffragist, counting among her friends Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Clara Barton. She was president of the New York City Suffrage Association for thirteen years, and she served as president of the National Suffrage Association from 1877-1878. She also donated fifty dollars a week the the publication of The Revolution, Stanton’s and Anthony’s feminist newspaper.
Dr. Clemence Lozier died in 1888 at the age of seventy four. At her funeral, six women physicians all related to her—including a niece, grandnieces and a cousin—followed her remains into the church. In all, over forty women doctors were in attendance to pay their respects.
Dr. Clemence Lozier was a remarkable women whose spirit I hoped to have captured in my book about a few short years of her life.