Women in Medicine and the Joan C. Levison Scrapbook
by Anna E. Shuff G'26 (School of Information Studies), University Archives graduate student employee
Syracuse University counts Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive a degree in medicine in the United States, among its alumni. Though Blackwell received her degree in 1849—decades before Syracuse University was founded in 1870—her alma mater, Geneva Medical College, became part of the University’s medical school in 1872. When I learned of this, I became curious: what were the experiences of other women who followed in Blackwell’s footsteps to pursue medicine at Syracuse University? In 2021, the University Archives purchased an item that documents one such story—the Joan Levison Scrapbook.
Joan Levison on Easter Sunday circa 1945.
Joan C. Levison was a premedical student at Syracuse University and graduated cum laude with her bachelor’s degree in liberal arts in 1948. Her scrapbook provides a glimpse into what student life was like for a woman pursuing medicine in the mid-1940s, almost a century after Blackwell’s historic graduation. The overall tone of the scrapbook is lighthearted and celebratory, but throughout there are traces that show just how hard Levison must have worked to excel in a field where women were still overwhelmingly in the minority.
Levison and friends enjoy the snow outside Root Cottage.
Levison’s scrapbook shows that she had a vibrant social life. It documents her friends and the activities they engaged in, from attending Easter service at Hendricks Chapel, to traveling to Lake Cazenovia, to playing in the snow. Many photographs show scenes of daily life at Root Cottage and Geneva Cottage, two houses purchased by the University to serve as dormitories for female students. Even amidst these smiling, playful photographs, there is evidence of the dedication Levison had to her student career. Geneva Cottage, where she lived beginning in the summer of 1945, was one of four co-operative houses on campus, an arrangement that gave students discounted room and board in exchange for work maintaining the building.
Joan Levison works in a science laboratory with classmates, circa 1945-1948.
A unique feature of Levison’s scrapbook is the fact that it documents her academic work as well as her social life. A series of photographs show her, clad in a white lab coat, conducting experiments in a laboratory setting with a few other students, all of whom are men. Levison looks happy and confident in these images, assured of her place among her classmates. She had every reason to be; she was an outstanding student and in 1947 was awarded membership in the New York Beta Chapter of Alpha Epsilon Delta, an honor society for premedical students. The following year, she attained an officer position as the chapter’s historian. All these achievements are a testament to her exceptional work in a field still biased against women. Indeed, in a group photograph of the society in Syracuse University’s 1948 yearbook, Levison is one of only four women pictured in a group of 30 students.
Certificate received by Joan Levison in 1947 upon her initiation into the premedical honorary fraternity Alpha Epsilon Delta.
Records of Levison’s career after her graduation are sparse. It’s not clear whether she went on to receive her medical degree or utilized her experience in science for some other pursuit. Regardless of this, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and Joan C. Levison both have been part of a larger trend towards women’s participation in the medical field. According to the U.S. Physician Workforce Data Dashboard published by the Association of American Medical College (AAMC), female practitioners made up 38% of physicians in the United States as of 2023. This is a number likely to increase in the coming years: the AAMC reported that 2019 marked the first year in which women made up more than 50% of medical students. Their most recent data shows that this number is still rising—in the 2023-24 school year, women made up 54.6% of medical students. None of these advances would be possible without Blackwell’s first entry into the medical field in the United States, nor without the persistence and dedication of individuals like Levison who moved the medical field forward to where it stands today.