WIH Susan LaFlesche Picotte Mystery Cache
WIH Susan LaFlesche Picotte
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When I was in High School, I took an English class that focused on Women in History. I thought it was a good time to have some caches related to powerful and or influential women
Susan LaFlesche Picotte (June 17, 1865 – September 18, 1915, Omaha[1] was a Native American doctor and reformer in the late 19th century. She is widely acknowledged as the first Native American to earn a medical degree.[2] She campaigned for public health and for the formal, legal allotment of land to members of the Omaha tribe.
Picotte was an active social reformer as well as a physician. She worked to discourage drinking on the reservation where she worked as the physician, as part of the temperance movement of the 19th century. Picotte also campaigned to prevent and treat tuberculosis, which then had no cure, as part of a public health campaign. She also worked to help other Omaha navigate the bureaucracy of the Office of Indian Affairs and receive the money owed to them for the sale of their land.
Though women were often healers in Omaha Indian society, it was uncommon for any Victorian-era woman in the United States to go to medical school.] In the late 19th century, only a few medical schools accepted women.
LaFlesche was accepted at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP), which had been established in 1850 as one of the few medical schools on the East Coast for the education of women. Medical school was expensive, however, and she could not afford it on her own. For help, she turned to family friend Alice Fletcher, an ethnographer from Massachusetts who had a broad network of contacts within women's reform organizations.] LaFlesche had previously helped nurse Fletcher back to health following a flareup of inflammatory rheumatism.
Fletcher encouraged LaFlesche to appeal to the Connecticut Indian Association, a local auxiliary of the Women's National Indian Association (WNIA).[21] The WNIA sought to "civilize" the Indians by encouraging Victorian values of domesticity among Indian women, and sponsored field matrons whose task was to teach Native American women "cleanliness" and "godliness."
LaFlesche, in writing to the Connecticut Indian Association, had described her desire to enter the homes of her people as a physician and teach them hygiene as well as curing their ills; this was in line with the Victorian virtues of domesticity which the Association wanted to encourage. The Association sponsored LaFlesche's medical school expenses, and also paid for her housing, books and other supplies. She is considered the first person to receive aid for professional education in the United States. The Association requested that she remain single during her time at medical school and for several years after her graduation, in order to focus on her practice.
At the WMCP, LaFlesche studied chemistry, anatomy, physiology, histology, pharmaceutical science, obstetrics, and general medicine, and, like her peers, did clinical work at facilities in Philadelphia alongside students from other colleges, both male and female. While attending medical school, LaFlesche changed her appearance. She began to dress like her white classmates and wore her hair in a bun on the top of her head as they did.
After LaFlesche's second year in medical school, she had to return home to help her family, many of whom had fallen ill due to a measles outbreak. It could be a serious disease for both adults and children. During the rest of her schooling, she would write letters back home giving medical advice.
She was valedictorian and graduated at the top of her class on March 14, 1889, after a rigorous three-year course of study.
In June 1889, LaFlesche applied for the position of government physician at the Omaha Agency Indian School; she was offered the position less than two months later. After her graduation, she went on a speaking tour at the request of the Connecticut Indian Association, assuring white audiences that Indians could benefit from white civilization.
She maintained her ties with the Association after medical school. They appointed her as a medical missionary to the Omaha after graduation, and the Association funded purchase of medical instruments and books for her during her early years of practicing medicine in Nebraska
All the information needed to solve the puzzle is on this page.
Final Can Be Located At:
N 44° AB.CCC W 071° DD.EFG
AB=Susan LaFlesche Picotte was a Native American doctor and reformer in the late ABth century
ccc: Susan LaFlesche Picotte was identified as the first native American to become a doctor
ccc=True = 250
ccc= False = 255
DD Age at Death minus 1
E=Month of Birth
F= year of birth 18F5
G= Month , LaFlesche applied for the position of government physician at the Omaha Agency Indian School;
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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