Five audacious young women made sure plans for the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine weren’t derailed along with falling prices for B & O Railroad stock, which comprised nearly half of Mr. Hopkins’ bequest. Mary Elizabeth Garrett, M. Carey Thomas, Bessie King, Mamie Gwinn and Julia Rogers formally organized the Women’s Medical School Fund and raised the $500,000 needed to open the medical school and construct its first home, the Women’s Medical Fund Building. They, too, had radical notions that found fertile ground at Johns Hopkins. Their money came with strings: the medical school must admit women and it must specify more rigorous admission standards than any other, including a grounding in science. They thus set the standard for medical school admissions, ending the era of training physicians in undergraduate trade schools.

Photo courtesy of The Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives, The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions