Dr. Mary Edwards Walker

Dr Mary Edwards Walker has been on the Brart list for a long time. People ask me all the time ‘How do you decide to choose for your portraits?’ A lot of it has to do with materials that come to me. Working with found object materials you have to wait for the materials to come to you. I don’t go to the store and buy the color or material that I want just cause I have an idea. Sometimes the discipline of sustainable art forms is waiting for the right time for ideas and materials to come together. 
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For the longest time I didn’t know how to represent her image since a core part of who she is, was about wearing the clothes she wanted to wear. Born 1832, there are clearly defined gender roles and clothing in American society at that time. Dr. Mary Walker, was raised by free thinking parents that encouraged her to challenge societal norms. Being raised on a farm, she often wore what was considered to be men’s clothing, because corsets were too difficult to do farm work in, and her parents supported her in this. As she got older she got a medical degree from Syracuse Medical College in 1855. She was Initially rejected from the army when the Civil War broke out but she was eventually accepted and became the first female surgeon in the US Army. Dr. Mary Walker continue to wear male clothing as she maintained that women’s clothing was too restrictive and not healthy. When she did wear skirts, she often wore shorter skirts with pants or bloomer pants underneath. She wrote books of dress reform, but was also physically assaulted many times because of her clothing and was also arrested in some instances. It’s kind of mind blowing when you think of the challenges that Dr. Mary Walker faced, and how women today still receive unwanted commentary on clothing. 

Mary had many notable activities and accomplishments in the army. But what I want to focus on is the fact that she is the only woman in US history to receive the Medal of Honor. She is the only women out of 3,500 recipients to receive a Medal of Honor in US history, but it was a convoluted process at best. Awarded in 1865, following the Civil War, it was rescinded in 1917, two years before she died. She never returned the medal and continued to wear it. Her award was posthumously restored to her family in 1977.

All of this to say, I am glad I trusted my instincts and waited to Dr Mary Edward Walkers portrait as part of my Women Who Dressed as Men and Made Herstory funded by the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. Wearing men’s clothing isn’t just something that she did, it was part of what she recommended as a medical physician. 

If you are like me, and say 'Where is the biographical movie about Dr. Mary Edwards Walker's life?" Parts of the internet say that Roslind Ross is writing a script about her life. Let me tell you. If that movie gets produced, I will be first in line to buy a ticket.