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Harriet Jane Lawrence

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American pathologist (1883–1974)
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Harriet Lawrence (1883-1974) was physician and among the earliest pathologists in the United States, being the first woman known to practice pathology in Oregon.

Life and education

Harriet Jane Lawrence was born on September 13, 1883, in Kingsbury, Maine.

While paying her tuition by teaching, Lawrence attended college and medical school. She was one of six women graduated from Boston University School of Medicine in 1912. She later received the 1963 Distinguished Alumni Award from Boston University in acknowledgment of her contributions to medicine and work to advance women in the field.

Census records from 1920, 1930, and 1940 show Lawrence by her birth name and those records indicate that she had a daughter named Elizabeth.

Work in Portland

She moved to Portland, Oregon, in 1912 and began to work with Ralph Matson, who was a tuberculosis specialist. The next year, Lawrence opened her own laboratory in the Selling Building, where she worked for the next 50 years as a “microbe hunter". Lawrence lived on Peacock Lane in Portland, Oregon, where at one point she kept more than 200 guinea pigs for use in experimentation with serums.

Lawrence became a fellow with the newly formed American Society of Clinical Pathologists in 1927. The goal of the organization was to advance the field of clinical pathology and to ensure it was on equal ground with other specialized areas of medicine. She was a member of the Medical Club of Portland and the Philanthropic Educational Organization (P.E.O.) Sisterhood, which was an international organization that worked to provide educational opportunities for women. She helped Dr. Alan L. Hart in his 1917 transition to male and provided a professional recommendation for him for a position as a physician at the Albuquerque Sanatorium.

Work on the 1918 Influenza Pandemic

She successfully created a serum therapy to treat those infected with the 1918 Flu Pandemic and helped distribute it. She used an influenza culture provided by the Oregon State Board of Health that had been obtained from a navy yard in Bremerton, Washington. It wasn't known at the time that influenza was caused by a virus. Lawrence's serum targeted the secondary bacterial infection instead. President Woodrow Wilson honored Lawrence for her work.

Death

She retired in 1967 and died in Portland on February 28, 1974.

References

  1. “Peacock Lane Historical District,” National Register of Historic Places, United States Department of the Interior National Park Service, October 30, 2017.
  2. ^ "Harriet Lawrence (1883-1974)". www.oregonencyclopedia.org. Retrieved 2021-03-10.
  3. ^ "Doctor Honored by University". The Oregonian. December 9, 1963.
  4. "United States Federal Census". ancestry.com. Retrieved March 8, 2021.
  5. "Oregon Historic Sites Database". heritagedata.prd.state.or.us. Retrieved 2021-03-10.
  6. ^ Carr, Sujittra Avery. "Beyond Suffrage: Giving Voice to Oregon's Unsung Women in Medicine". ir.library.oregonstate.edu. Tiah Edmunson-Morton, Natalia Fernandez, Kallie Hagel, Emma Pattee. Retrieved 2021-03-10.
  7. "Queering OHSU: Honoring Our LGBTQ+ History | OHSU". www.ohsu.edu. Retrieved 2021-03-10.
  8. "Vaccine Preparing to Check Influenza". Morning Oregonian. October 23, 1918.
  9. "Oregon, U.S., Death Index, 1898-2008 for Harriet Jane Lawrence". ancestry.com. Retrieved March 9, 2021.
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