First academically trained woman doctor in Danbury. Graduated from the State Normal School (now Central Connecticut State University) and in 1881 began her studies at the Woman’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary which had been founded by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell in 1868.  She specialized in treating women and children and spent a year at the New York Infirmary after graduation.  She began her practice in Danbury in 1886. Dr. Bailey was deeply religions and wrote about the power of God in healing the sick.  She also gave talks on non- medical subjects.These  talks were published in book form. Prophecies Fulfilled in History: the house of Israel was published  in 1895 and her talk, Prophecies in Course of Fulfillment: the house of Judah was published in 1896. Dr. Bailey petitioned to have her name changed after the death of her parents “to free the honor of her mother’s family from the taint arising from the name of her father” 

Jack Sanders. Old Ridgefield Dr. Annie Keeler Bailey: Pioneering Physician, http://www.naturegeezer.com/2017/01/dr.html 

Ridgebury Cemetery - Ridgefield CT |https://www.ridgefieldct.org › vyhlif4916 › events

Hidden History of Ridgefield , Connecticut by Jack Sanders  (Google Books) https://books.google.com/books?id=KfYyCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA69&lpg=PA69&dq=Annie+Keeler+Bailey&source=bl&ots=OlMZnonQhA&sig=ACfU3U2soV597ju7fU5qrJWBcmzRLmZxQQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjUuNPM2Of6AhUhF1kFHTOMDwoQ6AF6BAgoEAM#v=onepage&q=Annie%20Keeler%20Bailey&f=false

Emily was the first woman to serve on the staff of a general municipal hospital in NYC, the first woman to receive post-graduate surgical training in hospital service and the first female ambulance surgeon. She graduated from the Cornell School of Medicine in 1901. When she applied for an internship at Gouvernor Hospital she was denied because she was a woman. The next year, with support from political and religious figures, she was accepted.  She had to deal with resentment and hostility from physicians she was working with. She championed the service of women doctors during WWI and organized the American Women’s Hospital in Europe which provided care during and after the war. The King of Serbia awarded her a decoration for her work.   In 1915, she and her husband purchased land for a summer home for their family in New Canaan and moved there permanently after WWII. She wrote an autobiography, From Bowery to Bellevue, published in 1950, detailing her experiences in overcoming the barriers faced by female physicians in the early years of the century. 

Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame, https://www.cwhf.org/inductees/emily-barringer 

National Library of Medicine. Changing the Face of Medicine. Dr. Emily Dunning Barringer https://cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/physicians/biography_23.html.

National EMS Museum. Dr. Emily Dunning Barringer  https://emsmuseum.org/collections/archives/people/emily_dunning_barringer/

Connecticut History.org. New Canaan’s Pioneering Female Physician.  https://connecticuthistory.org/new-canaans-pioneering-female-physician/

Overcoming her father’s objections she enrolled in Mount Holyoke College, graduating in 1938 and going on to earn a master’s degree in nursing from Yale University in 1941.   She started her nursing career at the Nery Street Settlement in NYC and joined the Signal Corps during WWII.  She declined a proposal of marriage from Henry Wald and returned to teach at Rutgers then returned to Yale.  Wald renewed their acquaintance on reading of her promotion, and they were married in 1960.  After hearing a talk by Dr. Cicely Saunders, director of a hospice in London, she worked to change the way medical personnel approached palliative care.  Saunders was her mentor and inspiration and the first hospice facility in the United States opened in Branford Connecticut in 1971. She spoke out against overmedication of the elderly and the overemphasis on technology in treating cancer patients.  Later in life, she focused on setting up hospice unites in American prisons 

Yale School of Nursing. Yale Nursing’s Dean Wals and Nearly 50 Years of Hospice Care. 4/11/22
https://nursing.yale.edu/news/yale-nursings-dean-wald-and-nearly-50-years-hospice-care

 The Connecticut Hospice. Florence Wald, Mother of Hospice in America.  https://www.hospice.com/florence-wald-mother-of-hospice-in-america/

American Nurses Association, http://ojin.nursingworld.org/FunctionalMenuCategories/AboutANA/Honoring-Nurses/NationalAwardsProgram/HallofFame/19962000Inductees/waldfs5594.html

Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame, https://www.cwhf.org/inductees/florence-wald

                                                                     Dr. Joseph Lucian Carwin Jr. and his wife, Joyce Yerwood.

 Born in Texas she attended school there and graduated from Samuel Huston College in1928 and she and her sister attended their father’s alma mater, Meharry Medical College in Nashville Tennessee.   She married Joseph Lucian Carwin Jr. in 1935 and moved to Stamford where he had already established a medical practice.  She opened a practice in Port Chester to serve women and children, keeping her maiden name professionally.  She moved the practice to Stamford in 1955 and became the first African American woman doctor in Fairfield County.  She promoted opportunities for African American you, organized a choral group, and raised funds for an African American performing arts group and for the group’s permanent home. It became the Stamford Negro Community Center and was later renamed the Yerwood Center in her honor. She and her husband also helped found the Greenwich branch of the NAACP. 

Texas Historical Association, Handbook of Texas, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/yerwood-joyce 

New York Times. A Doctor’s RX for Youths.  By Jill Smolowe 11/13/77
https://wcsu.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/interview/docview/123334277/se-2?accountid=40083

Stamford Advocate Stamford’s first Black Woman Doctor made history in the 1940’s. Now she’s getting a street named after her. 5/23/22 https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Stamford-s-first-Black-woman-doctor-made-17189000.php

Boys and Girls Club of Stamford. For the love of Dr. Joyce Yerwood  https://www.bgcastamford.org/for-the-love-of-dr-joyce-yerwood/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjOH48v3n-gIVD43ICh3rnQsIEAAYASAAEgIokPD_BwE