Friday, July 19, 2013

Day 174, July 19

We accept that girls and women wear pants.  It wasn't always so.

Well more than a hundred years ago, it was unheard of for a well-bred woman, or even a woman of lesser birth, to wear trousers or "britches." 

The first American woman to make a point of wearing pants was Dr. Mary Walker.  Dr. Walker raised such a ruckus about her right to wear pants that Congress passed special legilstation giving her the legal right to do so.

Born in New York in 1832, Mary was one of the first women in America to become a doctor.  At the young age of 23, she became a practicing physician.

Mary served four years on the battlefields of the Civil War, where she was a commissioned memberm of the Medical Corps with the rank of first lieutenant.  A practical woman, Mary wore pants in treating the wounded.

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