Credit: Drexel University College of Medicine, Archives and Special Collections
Educated in Quaker schools in southeastern Pennsylvania, Ann Preston (1813 - 1872) enrolled in the first class of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania and graduated two years later at the age of 38. Appointed a professor of physiology and hygiene there in 1853, she in 1866 became the college's first woman dean. Preston then convinced other educational clinics and medical societies in Philadelphia to end their exclusion of female students.
