Pauline Root

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Pauline Root
A white woman with dark hair in an updo
Mary Pauline Root, from the 1907 yearbook of Smith College
Born
Mary Pauline Root

May 22, 1859
Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.
DiedJuly 10, 1944
Christmas Cove, Maine, U.S.
OccupationPhysician, missionary, educator

Mary Pauline Root (May 22, 1859 – July 10, 1944) was an American physician, missionary, and educator. She established a women's hospital in southern India and was resident physician at Smith College.

Early life and education[edit | edit source]

Root was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the daughter of Henry Theodore Root and Mary Evelyn Lake Root.[1] She graduated from Ingham University and from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1883.[2] She pursued further medical training at Cornell Medical School in 1906.[3]

Career[edit | edit source]

Root was the first woman to be a resident physician at the Philadelphia's Blockley Hospital,[4][5] and the first woman physician to become a missionary with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.[6] In 1885 she went to Madurai in southern India,[7] to establish and run the American Hospital for Women and Children. Her missionary service ended in 1896.[6] She lectured about her work in India during furloughs,[8][9] and for years after she left the foreign mission field.[10][11]

Root lectured for the Student Volunteer Missionary Movement in 1902.[12] She was the resident physician at Smith College from 1906 to 1909, and taught hygiene classes there.[13] She was resident physician at the Bennett School in Millbrook, New York, from 1909 to 1910.[14] During and after World War I she was a lecturer for the YWCA and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, traveling extensively in the United States to speak on social hygiene.[6][15]

Publications[edit | edit source]

  • "Letter from Dr. Pauline Root" (1892)[16]
  • "Japan" (1892)[17][18]
  • "Japan: The Women's Bible Training School in Kobe" (1892)[19]
  • "The Kindergarten in Kobe, Japan" (1892)[20][21]
  • "Young Women in India—A Letter to Mothers" (1892)[22][23]
  • "India; Contrasts" (1892)[24][25]
  • "Memories of Medical Work" (1895)[26]

Personal life and legacy[edit | edit source]

Root died in 1944, in Christmas Cove, Maine, at the age of 85. There is a box of her papers and photographs in the College of Medicine Legacy Center of Drexel University.[6] Educator and physician Mary Pauline Jeffery was born to missionary parents in India in 1893, and was named for Root.[27][28]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ Who's who in Pennsylvania: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporaries. 1909. p. 805.
  2. ↑ Henry, Frederick Porteous (1909). Founders' Week Memorial Volume: Containing an Account of the Two Hundred and Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Founding of the City of Philadelphia, and Histories of Its Principal Scientific Institutions, Medical Colleges, Hospitals, Etc. City of Philadelphia. p. 508.
  3. ↑ Cornell University (1908). The Ten-year Book of Cornell University, 1868-1908. p. 455.
  4. ↑ Mills, Charles Karsner (1908). The Philadelphia Almshouse and the Philadelphia Hospital: From 1854 to 1908. p. 44.
  5. ↑ "Doctors for Blockley Hospital". The Philadelphia Times. 1883-04-15. p. 1. Retrieved 2025-09-15 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 "Collection: Mary Pauline Root papers". Archival Collections, Drexel University. Retrieved 2025-09-15.
  7. ↑ "Woman's Work in the Madura Mission". Life and Light for Woman. 19 (6): 242. June 1889.
  8. ↑ "Dr. Pauline Root; She lectures This Evening on 'Every Day Life in India'". Oakland Enquirer. 1892-05-12. p. 8. Retrieved 2025-09-15 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ↑ "Missionary Work in India; Entertaining and Instructive Lecture by Dr. Pauline Root". The Burlington Free Press. 1896-04-30. p. 6. Retrieved 2025-09-15 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ↑ "Tells of Her Work in Far-Off India". Minneapolis Daily Times. 1903-11-09. p. 8. Retrieved 2025-09-15 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ↑ "Rhode Island". The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review. 52 (6): 372. June 1914.
  12. ↑ "Talked of Work in India; Dr. Pauline Root Listened to at Home of Mrs. Steidel in Crete". The Lincoln Star. 1902-11-26. p. 5. Retrieved 2025-09-15 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ↑ Smith College (1907). Class of 1907 Classbook. College Archives Smith College Libraries. Smith College. p. 17 – via Internet Archive.
  14. ↑ Woman's Who's who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914-l9l5. American Commonwealth Company. 1914. p. 701.
  15. ↑ "Woman Doctor Visits Tomah Indian School; Y.W.C.A. Sends Dr. Pauline Root as Girls' Hygiene Expert". The La Crosse Tribune. 1919-10-10. p. 2. Retrieved 2025-09-15 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ↑ Root, Pauline (September 1892). "Letter from Dr. Pauline Root". Life and Light for Woman. 22 (9): 410–413 – via Internet Archive.
  17. ↑ Root, Pauline (January 1892). "Japan". Life and Light for Woman. 22 (1): 33–35 – via Internet Archive.
  18. ↑ Root, Pauline (February 1892). "Japan". Life and Light for Woman. 22 (2): 81–90 – via Internet Archive.
  19. ↑ Root, Pauline (April 1892). "Japan: The Women's Bible Training School in Kobe". Life and Light for Woman. 22 (4): 155–158 – via Internet Archive.
  20. ↑ Root, Pauline. "The Kindergarten in Kobe, Japan." In Cassidy & Kaston-Tange: Children and Empire, Vol. I, pp. 259-264. Routledge, 2024.
  21. ↑ Root, Pauline (October 1892). "The Kindergarten at Kobe, Japan". Life and Light for Woman. 22 (10): 459–463 – via Internet Archive.
  22. ↑ Root, Pauline. "Young Women in India.—A Letter to Mothers." In Cassidy & Kaston-Tange: Children and Empire, Vol. II, pp. 69-70. Routledge, 2024.
  23. ↑ Root, Pauline (October 1892). "Young Women in India--A Letter to Mothers". Life and Light for Woman. 22 (10): 479–482 – via Internet Archive.
  24. ↑ Root, Pauline. "India. Contrasts." In Cassidy & Kaston-Tange: Children and Empire, Vol. I, pp. 253-258. Routledge, 2024.
  25. ↑ Root, Pauline (December 1892). "India: Contrasts". Life and Light for Woman. 22 (12): 553–557 – via Internet Archive.
  26. ↑ Root, Pauline (January 1895). "Memories of Medical Work". Life and Light for Woman. 25 (1): 12–15 – via Internet Archive.
  27. ↑ "Oberlin's Women: Mary Pauline Jeffery". Oberlin's Women: A Legacy of Leadership & Activism. Retrieved 2025-09-15.
  28. ↑ "The World of Books; 'Dr. Ida: India'; Romantic Service of Missionary Physician". The Springfield Daily Republican. 1939-03-13. p. 6. Retrieved 2025-09-15 – via Newspapers.com.

External links[edit | edit source]

  • Caitlin "KT" Abadir-Mullally, "Revisiting the Mary Pauline Root papers" The Legacy Center Blog (November 29, 2023), a blog post about Root's papers at Drexel.
  • Mary E. Schaller Blaufuss, "Goals of the American Madura Mission: A Study of Changing Mission Goals in the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions During the Nineteenth Century" (PhD dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary 2000).
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