Mary Corinna Putnam Jacobi ( Putnam; August 31, 1842 – June 10, 1906) was an esteemed American medical physician, teacher, scientist, writer, and suffragist. She was the first woman to study medicine at the University of Paris, and had a long career practicing medicine, teaching, writing, and advocating for women's rights, especially in medical education. Disparaging anecdotal evidence and traditional approaches, she demanded rigorous scientific research on every question of the day. Her scientific rebuttal of the popular idea that menstruation made women unsuited to education was influential in the fight for women's educational opportunities. Early life Mary Corinna Putnam was born on August 31, 1842 in London, England. She was the daughter of an American father, George Palmer Putnam and British mother, Victorine Haven Putnam, originally from New York City. Mary was the oldest of eleven children. At the time of Mary's birth, the family was in London because her father George was establishing a branch office for his New York City publishing company, Wiley & Putnam. In 1848, at the age of six, Mary's family moved from London back to New York, where she spent the rest of her childhood and adolescence. Mary was educated at home by her mother Victorine for most of her early years before she attended a private school in Yonkers. Later she attended a public school for girls on 12th Street in Manhattan where she graduated in 1859. After graduating, she studied Greek, science, and medicine privately with Elizabeth Blackwell and others. As a teenager, Mary dabbled in writing, publishing short stories in The Atlantic Monthly from the age of fifteen, and later in the New York Evening Post. Adult life and career Although Mary's father George Putnam believed a career in medicine was a "repulsive pursuit," he reluctantly agreed to financially support Mary's decision to pursue medicine, an ambition she had held since childhood. In 1863, Jacobi graduated from the New York College of Pharmacy, which made her the first woman to graduate from a United States school of pharmacy. In 1864 she received her M.D. from the Female (later Women's) Medical College of Pennsylvania. For several months, she then practiced clinical medicine with Marie Zakrewska and Lucy Sewall at the New England Hospital for Women and Children. She also served in the Civil War as a medical aide. During a short internship in which she studied clinical medicine at the New