Collection inventory

Overview of the Collection
Creator:	Walker, Mary Edwards, 1832-1919.
Title:	Mary Edwards Walker Collection
Inclusive Dates:	1799-1990
Bulk Dates:	1860-1919
Quantity:	2.25 linear ft.
Abstract:	Papers of the physician, social reformer, native of Oswego, N.Y. Advocate of dress reform and women's suffrage. Collection includes correspondence (1833-1913), mainly from Dr. Walker's lecture tour of Britain in 1866-67 and from her Civil War service, 1862-65; legal and financial documents, including deeds, wills, and material concerning her divorce and employment at the Federal Pension Office; photographs; and writings, including material on the trial of Frank C. Almay in 1891, lectures, pamphlets, and reminiscences.
Language:	English
Repository:	Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries 222 Waverly Ave., Suite 600 Syracuse, NY 13244-2010 https://library.syracuse.edu/special-collections-research-center/university-archives

Biographical History

Mary Edwards Walker (Nov. 26, 1832- Feb. 21, 1919) was an American surgeon, suffragist, and dress reformer. She is the only woman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Walker was born in Oswego Town near Oswego, N.Y., the daughter of Vesta (Whitcomb) Walker, a cousin of the agnostic lecturer Robert C. Ingersoll, and Alvah Walker, farmer, Methodist, self-taught student of medicine, and, like his wife, a descendant of early New England settlers. (See Whitcomb Family Tree and Walker Family Tree.) Mary had four older sisters (including Luna and Aurora Borealis) and a younger brother. The family was somewhat non-traditional in that Vesta often participated in heavy labor (usually the province of men) while Alvah helped out in general household chores (usually seen as women's work). Her mother viewed corsets and tight lacings, typical of women's clothing at the time, as unhealthy.

After studying in the local common school, Walker attended Falley Seminary, Fulton, N.Y., for two winter terms (1850-52) and, after teaching briefly, entered Syracuse Medical College in December 1853. Graduating in 1855, she practiced for a few months in Columbus, Ohio, and then returned to Rome, N.Y. In November of that year she married Albert Miller of Rome, a fellow medical student. Though she never adopted his name, the two practiced medicine together in Rome for several years.

As a girl Walker had rejected traditional female clothing as too confining, and when the "bloomer" fashion flourished briefly in the early 1850s she adopted the new costume. In January 1857 she joined Lydia Sayer Hasbrouck of Middletown, NY, and others in a dress reform convention and began contributing regularly to Hasbrouck's reformist periodical, the Sibyl. In 1859 she and her husband separated and she embarked on a lengthy effort to obtain a divorce, which was finally granted in 1869. In 1860 she briefly attended the Bowen Collegiate Institute in Hopkinton, Iowa but was suspended when she refused to resign from the hitherto all-male debating society.

When the Civil War broke out, Walker requested to join the Union Army as a surgeon but was rejected because she was a woman. Officially allowed to serve only as a nurse, she worked as an unpaid field surgeon near the Union front lines, including at the Battle of Fredericksburg and in Chattanooga after the Battle of Chickamauga. She also volunteered in the Patent Office Hospital and helped organize the Women's Relief Association, to aid women visiting relatives stationed in the capital. In September 1863 she was formally employed as a civilian surgeon by the Army of the Cumberland (over the objections of its medical director), becoming the first female surgeon employed by the US Army. She was later appointed assistant surgeon of the 52nd Ohio Infantry. While serving, she wore the same uniform as that of her fellow officers. In April 1864 she was captured by Confederate forces and held as a spy until August, when she was exchanged for a Confederate surgeon. Walker was subsequently appointed supervisor of a hospital for women prisoners in Louisville, Ky., and then head of an orphanage in Clarksville, Tennessee. Her personality unfortunately antagonized both her subordinates and the local citizenry; early in 1865 she was ordered to Washington and shortly thereafter she left the government's service. Later in the year she was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for Meritorious Service.

Walker enjoyed a brief period of fame in the immediate postwar years. In 1866 the dwindling adherents of the National Dress Reform Association elected her president, and in the same year she met with some success on an English lecture tour. Returning to the United States in 1867, she lived for a few years with Belva Lockwood, a young Washington teacher and would-be attorne, and for a time the two women jointly promoted various feminist causes, particularly women's suffrage. Walker was active in the Central Women's Suffrage Bureau of Washington and made occasional appearances at Congressional hearings. In 1869, on a lecture tour of the Midwest, she participated in a Cincinnati suffrage convention attended by Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony, and in 1872 she made an unsuccessful effort to vote in Oswego Town.

Though the suffragists were quite ready to publicize and magnify her war service to aid the feminist cause, she herself became an increasingly unwelcome presence at their gatherings for a number of reasons, including the fact that, having persuaded herself that women already possessed the right to vote under the federal Constitution, she rejected as "trash" the proposed suffrage amendment. Her books Hit (1871), a rambling autobiographical and speculative work, and Unmasked, or, Science of Immorality (1878), which included an extended discussion of various sexual matters and a chapter on "hermaphrodites," further damaged her in the eyes of the public. Her medical proficiency was often challenged, and she enjoyed no standing in that profession; apparently she did not practice after the war. Her unremitting efforts to secure a pension for her war duty were only partially successful. She sought to return to government service and in 1882 was given a job in the mail room of the Pension Office, but was dismissed the following year for alleged insubordination. Walker maintained her interest in dress reform, adopting as her regular garb not only trousers but a masculine jacket, shirt, stiff wing collar, bow tie, and top hat. As a result, she was frequently arrested for wearing men's clothing -- although she herself stated, "I don't wear men's clothes, I wear my own clothes." This proved too much for her fellow reformers, however, and Walker found herself alienated from them as well. By 1907, when she set down her suffrage views in a pamphlet called Crowning Constitutional Argument, she was virtually without influence in any of the areas that had hitherto been such large parts of her life.

Walker spent most of her time after 1890 in Oswego Town, where the family farm had come into her hands. As she grew older she became increasingly contentious; in 1891 she undertook an elaborate campaign to implicate her hired man in a New Hampshire murder, apparently in an effort to collect the $5,000 reward, and she was regularly involved in litigation with relatives and tenants. In 1917 the federal Board of Medal Awards, as part of a general review, declared that her Civil War citation had been unwarranted and officially withdrew it, but Walker continued to wear it, believing that it had been unjustly rescinded solely because she was a woman. She died in 1919 at age eighty-six. She was buried in Oswego, New York, wearing a black suit instead of a dress.

Although by the end of her life Walker was isolated and not widely respected, her reputation has recovered over time and her legacy has proven durable. Her Medal of Honor was posthumously restored in 1977, and she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2000. The US Postal Service put her on a stamp in 1982, and in 2012 a bronze statue of her was unveiled in front of the Town Hall in Oswego, New York. The World War II Liberty ship the SS Mary Walker was named for her, as are the Mary Walker Health Center at SUNY Oswego and the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, DC. In August of 2023 Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia was officially renamed Fort Walker in her honor, and in 2024 she appeared on an American Women quarter, pictured holding her pocket surgical kit with the Medal of Honor and a surgeon's pin visible on her uniform.

Return to top

Scope and Contents of the Collection

The Mary Edwards Walker Collection (formerly the Mary Edwards Walker Papers) consists of correspondence, legal and financial documents, memorabilia, pension documents, and writings by, about, or related to Mary Edward Walker. Principal dated items in the collection span the years 1799 to 1919, but the years 1863 to 1895 are the most heavily represented.

Correspondence consists of letters, notes, and telegrams from the years 1833 to 1913. The earliest letters are dated 1833 and 1834 and are addressed to an aunt of Dr. Walker, also named Mary (1804-1895). Of Walker's own correspondence, all but eight are incoming (to her). Very little of it deals exclusively with medicine or her livelihood as a physician; nearly half pertain to Walker's 1866-1867 lecture tour of Britain. Letters discuss, among other subjects, arrangements for her post-Civil War tours and lectures, her book Hit, and her pension claims. Among her correspondents are the reformers Lydia Sayer Hasbrouck and Belva Ann Lockwood; physicians Charles Alfred Lee, Ann Preston, and George Miller Sternberg; political wives Mary Baird Bryan and Frances Folsom Cleveland; military and political figures James Heaton Baker, Jacob Collamer, William Lawrence, and Edward Davis Townsend; and the novelist Mary Andrews Denison. Many letters are from admirers on both sides of the Atlantic, but . Fourteen items of correspondence, dated 1888 and 1889, are from a correspondent signing as "Earl Bryant," who offered to perform domestic work for her.

There are also 24 letters that relate to Walker, among them a letter from her husband Albert Miller to a Walker relative, letters of recommendation, and letters of introduction. Seven other letters, dated between 1842 and 1860, are addressed to John Whitbeck Hasbrouck (1821-1906), publisher (with his wife Lydia Sayer Hasbrouck) of the Sibyl, and may have been a gift from the Hasbroucks to Walker's autograph collection; among these are letters to Hasbrouck from William H. Seward and the publishers Louis A. Godey, Horace Greeley, and Joseph W. Harper.

Legal and financial documents date principally from 1861 to 1895. Contained here are bills and receipts, including some from her 1866-67 lecture tour of Britain; a deed and an abstract of title to land owned by Dr. Walker in Oswego, N.Y.; items relating to her successive attempts to win a divorce from Albert Miller; a group of statements and reports that describe her employment in 1882 and 1883 at the Pension Office in Washington and the circumstances of her dismissal; and two family wills.

Memorabilia of Walker's career, travels, and interests date principally from 1860 to 1919. The series contains clipped signatures, clippings about Walker and related people or subjects such as dress reform, Confederate and Walker family memorabilia, lecture advertisements, medical memorabilia, newspapers (including several Confederate publications), photographs and portraits, items related to the women's rights movement, and miscellaneous items including a poster, scrapbook, and travel notes.

Pension documents demonstrate Dr. Walker's long efforts to obtain a government pension in recognition of her Civil War service. These include\ pension legislation introduced in the Congress on her behalf between 1872 and 1888, accompanying committee reports, documents relating to her service with the Union Army, an 1897 copy of President Andrew Johnson's 1865 citation granting her the Congressional Medal of Honor, and miscellaneous items.

Writings include both published and unpublished pieces by Walker, as well as items by others about her. Published material consists of the book Unmasked, or The Science of Immorality (in a microfilm copy) and copies of her pamphlets Crowning Constitutional Argument and Isonomy. Unpublished material includes drafts of her arguments in the Almy Reward case, a summary of the case, and other related materials were generated by her involvement in the 1891 trial of Frank C. Almy for the murder of Christie Warden and the subsequent litigation to distribute the reward money. There are two lectures, bills proposed by Walker to Congress, published letters to the editor, and nine brief reminiscences, largely of her experiences during the Civil War, that amount to thirty-seven typescript pages of anecdotal material. Writings by others consist of a Syracuse University master's thesis and a book, both of which are photocopies.

Return to top

Arrangement of the Collection

Correspondence is arranged chronologically. Undated letters, arranged alphabetically by correspondents' names, and letters that have no year dates, arranged by month, are filed at the end of the correspondence section. Letters dated only to year are filed ahead of other letters of the same year, and letters mailed as enclosures are kept with their covering letters. All other series are arranged alphabetically by type, title, or subject matter.

Return to top

Restrictions

Access Restrictions

The majority of our archival and manuscript collections are housed offsite and require advanced notice for retrieval. Researchers are encouraged to contact us in advance concerning the collection material they wish to access for their research.

Use Restrictions

Written permission must be obtained from SCRC and all relevant rights holders before publishing quotations, excerpts or images from any materials in this collection.

Return to top

Subject Headings

Persons

Corporate Bodies

Subjects

Places

Genres and Forms

Return to top

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Preferred citation for this material is as follows:

Mary Edwards Walker Collection,
Special Collections Research Center,
Syracuse University Libraries

Acquisition Information

Correspondence, photograph, and printed material, transfer 1971.
Thesis, gift of Mrs. Eric W. (Dorris Moore) Lawson, 1954.
Photograph of Dr. Mary Edwards Walker in man's attire, gift of Arsine Schmavonian, 1973.
Modern clippings about Mary Edwards Walker, various sources, 1962-1976.

Finding Aid Information

Created by: EL
Date: Feb 1976
Revision history: 18 Apr 2007 - converted to EAD (AMCon); 21 Aug 2013 - corrections, Writings by others (MRC); 4 May 2022 - number of lectures updated in Scope and Content (MRC); 30 Nov 2022 - poster added to collection, flattened oversize item rehoused in oversize box, extent and Scope and Content updated (DTF); 23 Jan 2026 - two items added, biography extensively revised, collection rehoused (MS)

Return to top

Inventory

	Correspondence
Box 1		General 1833-1834, 1842, 1849, 1852, 1856-1857, 1860-1869 - bulk of this material is from 1866 and 1867 (30 folders)
Box 2		General 1870-1874, 1876-1878, 1885-1889, 1891, 1893-1895, 1897-1898, 1901-1903, 1911, 1913 - bulk of this material is from 1870-1889 (23 folders)
Box 2		Partially dated
Box 2		Undated
Box 2		Drafts and fragments undated
Box 2		Envelopes not matched with letters (15 items)

	Legal and financial documents
Box 2		Bills and receipts 1819-1893
Box 2		Deed and abstract of title to land in Oswego, N.Y. 1877, 1882
Box 2		Divorce material 1861-1869, undated
			This consists of four copies of an 1861 New York decree in her favor, an 1866 New York Assembly bill exempting her, on the basis of her service in the Civil War, from the five-year limit on divorce actions, affadavits by Nelson Whittlesey and L.J. Worden on the infidelities of Albert Miller, and miscellaneous items.
Box 2		Pension Office employment 1883, undated
			These statements and reports describe Dr. Walker's employment in 1882 and 1883 at the Pension Office in Washington and the circumstances of her dismissall. They were generated by her unsuccessful attempts to gain reinstatement.
Box 2		Wills 1881-1895, undated - father Alvah Miller and aunt Mary Walker

	Memorabilia
Box 2		Autograph collection, various dates - Stephen A. Douglas, Millard Fillmore, William H. Seward, others (11 items)
		Clippings
Box 2			About Mary Edwards Walker 1867-1896, 1911-1913, 1953-1976, undated (6 folders)
Box 2			Dress reform 1884-1913, 1866, undated
Box 2			Obituary notices 1919
Box 2			Obituary notices of others 1892-1895
Box 2			References to Mary Edwards Walker 1892-1913, undated
Box 2			Miscellaneous clippings 1896-1913, undated (2 folders)
Box 2		Confederate memorabilia [Missing 1997: sheet of Confederate bonds missing] circa 1864 (2 items)
		Family memorabilia
Box 2			Broadside verse, "On the death of Alanson [Snow]" undated
Box 2			Genealogical data 1808-1903, undated
Box 2			Papers of Byron Worden 1906-1907
Box 2		Lecture handbills 1866, 1867, undated
Box 2		Medical memorabilia 1860-1866, undated
		Newspapers
Box 3			[Atlanta, GA] Daily Chronicle & Sentinel 17 April 1864
Box 3			Catskill Recorder and Greene County Republican 28 May 1829
Box 3			Chattanooga [TN] Daily Gazette 6 September 1864
Box 3			[Marietta, GA.] The Chattanooga Daily Rebel 13 April 1864
Box 3			[Richmond, VA] Daily Dispatch 12 August 1864
Box 3			[Richmond, VA] The Daily Richmond Enquirer 30 May 1864
Box 3			[Richmond, VA] Daily Richmond Examiner 9 May 1864
Box 3			Richmond Christian Advocate 5 May 1864
Box 3			Richmond Examiner 11 July 1864
Box 3			Richmond Examiner 3 August 1864
Box 3			Richmond Examiner 5 August 1864
Box 3			Richmond Examiner 9 August 1864
Box 3			Richmond Examiner 10 August 1864
Box 3			[Richmond, VA] The Soldier's Paper 15 April 1864
Box 3			[Richmond, VA] The Soldier's Visitor circa April 1864 - fragment
Oversize 1			The Sibyl 15 June 1860
Box 3			[Troy, NY] Daily Troy Sentinel 20 January 1831
Box 3			Troy Sentinel 17 April 1832
Box 3			Troy Sentinel 11 May 1832 - fragment?
Box 3			[Washington, D.C.] The National Republican 27 October 1881
		Photographs
Box 3			"Mrs. Katherine L. Edwards" 1908
Box 3			"A. Walker's new house" undated
Box 3			"Alvah Walker" undated
Box 3			"Charles A. Walker" undated
Box 3			"Dr. Mary Edwards Walker in man's attire" undated
Box 3			"Mary E. Walker, M.D." undated (3 items)
		Portraits other than photographs
Box 3			Cut-paper silhouettes undated (16 items)
Box 3			Printed halftone portrait of Dr. Mary Edwards Walker undated (5 copies)
Box 3		Women's rights memorabilia 1860-1869, undated (3 items)
			The items are: an undated printed cartoon with a verse that concludes, "You are too bold to be my Valentine"; the 15 June 1860 number of the Sibyl; an 1869 National Women's Suffrage Association leaflet that contains its constitution and plan of organization.
		Miscellanea
Box 3			Ephemera 1850, circa 1861-1870, 1876 - printed material (3 folders)
Oversize 1			Poster 1990 - "Dr Mary E. Walker speaks: a performance based on the life and words of Dr. Mary E Walker," SUNY Oswego
Box 3			Scrapbook circa 1838
Box 3			Sermon 1799 - handwritten, 16 pages
Box 3			Social mementos 1872-1881, undated (9 items)
Box 3			Travel notes circa 1867 - handwritten (4 items)
Box 3			Verse 1839-1894, 1904, undated - some handwritten, some printed (9 items)
Box 3			Unidentified fragments 1871, undated - handwritten
Box 3			Unidentified printed material 1878-1888, undated

	Pension documents
Box 3		Affidavit of Cary C. Conklin 1873
Box 3		Citation by President Andrew Johnson granting Dr. Mary E. Walker the Congressional Medal of Honor 1897 - copy dated
		Congressional bills and reports
Box 3			42nd Congress, House bill 1858, 1872 - printed material
Box 3			45th Congress, House report No. 896, House bill 5057, Senate bill 1645 1878-1879 - printed material
Box 3			46th Congress, Senate report No. 237 1880 - printed material (2 copies)
Box 3			48th Congress, House bill [no number] circa 1884 - handwritten
Box 3			49th Congress, House bill 5043 1886 - printed material
Box 3			50th Congress, House reports Nos. 602, 640 , and 1846; House bill 4265; Senate bill 1041 1887-1888
Box 3		Congressional Record, containing the Senate debate on a pension increase for Mary Edwards Walker 4 July 1898 - printed material with annotations in Walker's handwriting
Box 3		Congressional reports on bills for the relief of persons other than Mary E. Walker 1884-1888 - printed material
Box 3		Military service documents 1863-1865
Box 3		Miscellaneous items 1873, undated

	Writings
		Arguments in the Almy Reward case
Box 4			"Almy Reward Argument" to the Supreme Court of the State of New Hampshire circa 1895 - Draft A, annotated typescript, 12 pages
Box 4			"Almy Reward Argument" to the Supreme Court of the State of New Hampshire circa 1895 - Draft B, annotated typescript, 34 pages
Box 4			"Report" with "Almy Reward Contest" circa 1895 - report is 11 pages, other is 4 pages, annotated typescript
Box 4			Untitled memorandum circa 1895 - handwritten, 1 page
		Bills proposed to Congress
Box 4			"A bill to prevent losses of merchandise [in the mails]" and "Memorial regarding postal laws" undated, undated - 2 pages, handwritten and 2 pages, handwritten
Box 4			"Bill to protect the women citizens of the United States and territories" 1873 - fragment, printed material
		Books
Box 4			Unmasked, or the Science of Immorality (Philadelphia) 1878 - microfilm copy of Library of Congress Copyright Office deposit copy
Box 4			Unmasked, or the Science of Immorality (Philadelphia) 1878 - photocopy
		Lectures
Box 4			On my capture and imprisonment, Introduction undated - 3 pages, handwritten
Box 4			On Washington, the seat of the government circa 1866 - 35 pages, handwritten [?]
Box 4		Letters to the editor 1875, 1888 - printed material
		Pamphlets
Box 4			Crowning Constitutional Arguement (Oswego, N.Y.) 1907
Box 4			Isonomy 1898
		Reminiscences
Box 4			Incidents connected with the Army undated - 37 pages, typescript and photocopy (2 folders)
Box 4			On Mary Edwards Walker undated - 6 pages, handwritten
		By others
Box 4			Commencement of Syracuse Medical College 1855 - photocopy of original, as published in the American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. VII, No. 4
Box 4			“Dr. Mary Walker: a biographical sketch” by Dorris Moore Lawson 1931 - Syracuse University master's thesis; photocopy
Box 4			Dr. Mary Walker: the little lady in pants by Charles McCool Snyder, Vantage Press, New York 1962 - photocopy of book
Box 4			On women's dress, "By Prof. G. Edwin Churchill" undated - 1 page, handwritten copy

Return to top