Kate C. Woodhull
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Kate C. Woodhull | |
|---|---|
 Kate C. Woodhull, from a 1900 newspaper | |
| Born | July 24, 1842 Wading River, New York, U.S. |
| Died | March 25, 1926 (aged 83) Riverhead, New York, U.S. |
| Occupations | Physician, medical missionary in China |
Catherine "Kate" C. Woodhull (July 24, 1842 – March 25, 1926) was an American physician and medical missionary who ran a hospital in Fuzhou, China, from 1884 to 1912.
Woodhull was born in Wading River, New York, the daughter of Noah Hallock Woodhull and Hannah Conklin Woodhull.[1] She earned her medical degree from the New York Medical College for Women in 1873, with further studies in Zürich and Dresden.
Career
Woodhull taught school as a young woman. She practiced medicine in Smyrna, Delaware,[2] and was house physician at a foundling hospital in Chicago. She sailed for China as a medical missionary in 1884.[3] She trained Chinese women physicians and treated patients at a Christian mission in Foochow (Fuzhou) for 28 years.[4][5] Her younger sister Hannah C. Woodhull was also a missionary, as a teacher at Foochow.[1][6]
Woodhull founded and ran a hospital for women and children at Foochow.[7] "New paint and fresh whitewash will not heal disease," she wrote to colleagues in 1895 of her policies, "but it makes a good impression on the heathen if the hospital has a thrifty appearance."[8] Both sisters retired from mission work and returned to the United States in 1912.[9] She was succeeded as head of the hospital by Lora G. Dyer.[10] She spoke to American church and women's groups about her experiences in China,[11] and at the Woman's Board of Foreign Missions meeting in Boston in 1893.[12]
The Woodhull sisters had a furlough in the United States in 1896 and 1897.[13] They were "ardent advocates of enfranchising women" and both lived to vote in Suffolk County in 1918.[14]