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nings also led the trade to Wabash avenue, a thoroughfare which is now. lined with mammoth business blocks. From 1843 to 1850 he was actively engaged in merchandising in Chicago, but at the latter date he retired from this business, and gave his attention. largely to operations in real estate. and the improvement of his property. His fortune built up rapidly, and in 1864, when the city of Chicago found it necessary to issue scrip to the amount of two hundred and a half millions of dollars, to pay the bounties of soldiers enlisted in the war of the rebellion, Mr. Jennings was in a position which enabled him to become the purchaser of one-third of this scrip. In this he rendered the city an important service, which was augmented when, through his care and watchfulness, an attempt to counterfeit the scrip on an extensive scale was discovered and exposed.

In the later part of his life he was actively engaged in promoting various important enterprises, which not. only added largely to his wealth, but were, at the same time, of vast advantage and importance to the city.

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In the development of the splendid system of street railroads of the south division of the city, the organization and management of the Mutual Trust Society, one of the leading financial institutions of Chicago, and the management of the magnificent system of South Park boulevards, he was especially prominent.

While his almost unerring judgment of real estate values probably contributed more largely than anything else to the building up of his large fortune, he had a broad knowledge of business in general, and belonged to that active, intelligent and enterprising class of men whose resistless energy and unremitting effort gave to Chicago, in the early years of its history, the impetus which carried it forward with such astonishing rapidity. While still a mere youth he entered upon a business career to which he devoted himself with untiring zeal throughout a long life, and the great success which crowned his effort was but the legitimate reward of the industry, integrity and close application which were the distinguishing characteristics of the man.

HISTORY OF THE

MEDICAL PROFESSION AND MEDICAL

INSTITUTIONS OF CHICAGO.

XII.

MARY HARRIS THOMPSON, M. D.

A LITTLE less than twenty-seven years ago there came to Chicago a cultured, intelligent and thoroughly well educated young woman, who had determined to make an effort to establish herself in the practice of medicine, in what promised to be the leading city of "the great west." She entered upon her career as a physician in a field which, up to that time, had been occupied exclusively by the male members of the profession, and in which she must as a natural consequence find serious obstacles in the way of her advancement.

But two lady physicians had, prior to that time, attempted to gain a foothold in the city, and both of these had abandoned the field, so that when Dr. Mary Harris Thompson arrived here and began the practice of her profession, she became the pioneer representative of her sex among the medical practitioners of Chicago.

Knowing that she would find it necessary to combat long established and not easily eradicated prejudices, she could not help feeling, in the outset, that her success was problemati

cal, but she determined, nevertheless, to make an effort to win for her sex the recognition to which she thought it entitled in one of the learned professions.

That in this she has been in an eminent degree successful, is attested by the fact that the Chicago Medical Society long since placed her name upon its membership rolls, the Illinois State Medical Society opened its doors to her, and the American Medical Association has received her into "full fellowship."

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Three years since, at the annual meeting of the last-named association, held at St. Louis, Dr. Thompson was one of the distinguished medicists invited to address the association, and her paper on the subject, Why should diseases of children be made a special study?" read in response to that invitation, was voted one of the most interesting and instructive to which the assemblage of learned doctors listened during the session. That the subject was ably handled, and that the ability of the author of the paper was fully recog

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nized, was evidenced by the fact that the association tendered to her the chairmanship of the section on "diseases of children," for the next annual meeting of the organization.

As this was the first time in the history of the association that a chairmanship of this character had been offered to a lady physician, the compliment to Dr. Thompson was a flattering one, although she declined to accept the position. In 1887 she was a member of the International Medical Congress held in Washington, D. C., where she also received distinguished consideration.

Dr.

While this recognition of Thompson by the leading medical societies of the country, is proof that she has won the respect and esteem of the profession, while it brings prominently before the public the fact that her fitness for the work in which she has been engaged for more than a quarter of a century is recognized by those who should be best qualified to judge of it, and while it demonstrates conclusively that she has graced a noble calling, it falls very far short of me suring the success which she has achieved in professional life.

Her admission to these organizations, upon an equal footing with the most renowned physicians of the country, has been a tribute to her superior professional attainments, her strict adherence to the code of medical ethics, and her skill and ability as a practitioner of medicine.

These society honors are the "rewards of merit," which have been earned by years of service as a practicing physician. They do not represent the sum total of what she has accomplished, and it is only when we take a careful survey of the field within which she has confined her operations that the magnitude and importance of her work becomes fully apparent.

Twenty-seven years ago Dr. Thompson was the only lady practicing medicine in the city of Chicago. Today there are probably one hundred women who have graduated regularly from medical colleges, engaged in the successful practice of their profession in this city. Her success has made it possible for others to succeed, and under her sagacious guidance they have been stimulated to put forth their best efforts. If the history of the medical profession of Chicago had been written thirty years ago, not even a paragraph would or could have been properly given to the women's branch of the profession. To-day this branch of the practice has grown to such proportions that it furnishes material for one of the most interesting chapters of that history.

That this is true is due in a great measure to the splendid executive ability, the intelligence and the indomitable energy of one woman, the story of whose life and work is of rare interest.

Mary Harris Thompson was born. in Washington county, New York.

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