Dr. Louise Southgate
"Dr. Louise" Broke Down Barriers for Women
By Jim Reis
Reprinted here with the permission of the author from Pieces of the Past-Volume II
Louise Southgate grew up when women were expected to marry, bear children and be content with housework. There were not to worry about politics and world affairs. Voting, government and tough social issues were the things men were better equipped to understand and handle, according to 19th century standards. Louise Southgate set new standards.
Her name and her barrier breaking standards were recalled in 1990 when St. Luke Hospital christened the Louise Southgate Women’s Center. The facility is in the city of Southgate which was named for other members of the Southgate family. Louise was born in February 1857 into a family that included some of the earliest and most influential settlers in Northern Kentucky. Her father was Dr. Bernard W Southgate and her mother Eleanor Fleming. One of her great grandfathers was Thomas Kennedy. In his day, Kennedy owned much of what is the city of Covington. Kennedy arrived in Northern Kentucky about 1790 and built a cabin at the mouth of the Licking River. He later operated a ferry between Northern Kentucky and Ohio, was one of the first Newport trustees and was a Campbell County justice of the peace.
Kennedy was the seller when Richard and John Gano and Thomas D Carneal purchased 200 acres in 1815 and sketched the outlines for the city of Covington. Kennedy died in 1821. His great granddaughter carried the pioneer spirit Kennedy had shown when he built his cabin at the confluence of the rivers.
In 1871 when Louise was 13 her parents and youngest brother died in a cholera epidemic and left their six children to be raised by aunt Nancy Kennedy.
Louise veered from 19th century standards first by deciding to pursue a career, then by choosing a field that limited the role of women-medicine. Women were involved in medicine, as nurses and midwives, but seldom as doctors. There were a few exceptions, such as Sarah Siewers, who grew up in Newport. She began practicing medicine at 209 E Sixth Street in Newport. She had graduated from Cincinnati’s Eclectic Medical College in 1891 and did post graduate work in Cincinnati hospitals before starting her practice.
Louise Southgate faced the problem that few medical school of her era would accept women. One exception was Laura Memorial College. Laura Memorial College became part of the Ohio-Miami Medical School and eventually the University of Cincinnati Medical School. She graduated from the medical school in 1893 and then studied in Vienna at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. She began her practice in Northern Kentucky in 1894.
She first appears in the Covington City Directory in 1902 with an office at 107 W. Fourth Street. At the turn of the century, the question of women’s rights was reaching a new level of debate and that debate reached Northern Kentucky. The state Federation of Labor held a convention in Covington in 1905. A featured officer at the conventions was the organization’s fifth vice president-Mamie Wanke, the only woman to hold an office at the time in the Kentucky labor organization.
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Cincinnati Enquirer, 23 April 1899, page 36
Dr. Louise Southgate will deliver the address for the Faculty of Laura Memorial Medical College at the commencement exercises April 27, at Sinton Hall. Rev Dr. Moore will also deliver an address.
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Cincinnati Enquirer, 19 June 1904, page B5
COVINGTON
Miss Virginia Southgate is the guest of her sister, Dr. Louise Southgate. Later in June she will attend the International Educational Convention in St Louis, Mo.
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Miss Wanke was a former garment worker in Newport. She had helped organize the Newport Chapter of the Garment Workers Union and later helped organize unions in Covington. In 1905, in addition to being a vice president of the state labor organization, Miss Wanke was financial secretary for Garment Workers Union No. 77 in Covington. In the summer of 1905 the Covington City Council passed an ordinance requiring businesses to provide a separate dressing room and "water closet" for female employees. The ordinance called for a ratio of at least one restroom for each 25 women employees. Employers who violated the ordinance could be fined from $10 to $25.
Even though working women were drawing more attention, they still were a distinct minority who had practically no representatives from the affluent families. The norm among women of prominent families was to spend summers at resorts on the East Coast or traveling in Europe. The social columns in the newspaper were filled almost daily with their comings and goings.
Louise Southgate, a member of an affluent family, also traveled that summer, but her destination and her purpose were different. She went to Hindman-a small rural community in Knott County in Southeastern Kentucky. She provided medical care to the residents and helped teach at a school organized and staffed by volunteers from women’s clubs throughout the state.
Miss Southgate came to be called "Dr. Louise" and her circle of associates widened through her involvement with the Women’s Emergency Association of Covington. The school in Hindman and its programs became front page news in The Kentucky Post after a drive was started to raise money for a school. The Kentucky Post account said the schoolhouse also served as a reading room and a distribution point for clothing for the needy. The campaign resulted in the construction of a 28 room building opened in August 1905. The building, however, burned a few months later on November 1, 1905. A second campaign was undertaken to raise money for another school building.
Dr. Southgate, who had returned from her summer of volunteer work before the fire, was a logical person to speak at the fund raiser January 19, 1906 at Trinity Guild Hall in Covington. The special guest speaker was Professor John Uri Lloyd. Lloyd, the namesake of Lloyd High School in Erlanger, was a chemist and writer who was interested in mountain life. The story said the Women’s Club, which was organizing the event, also was inviting "all women’s clubs, patriotic, literary, religious, charitable and philanthropic" groups. The event raised about $400.
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Cincinnati Enquirer, 12 October 1909, page 13
Covington Briefs
Louise and Virginia Southgate yesterday transferred to Carrie A Howard at lot 63 by 142 feet on the north side of Second street: $1 etc.
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By 1910 Dr. Southgate had purchased the ancestral stone home of her great grandfather, Thomas Kennedy, at 124 Garrard Street in Covington. She had her medical office there and lived there with her sister, Virginia Southgate, a school teacher.
The state Equal Rights Association-1500 members statewide-held its 1910 convention a the Carnegie Library in Covington. The main speaker was Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. But also on the program was Louise Southgate, who spoke on "The Sisterhood of Women". Louise Southgate also was named chair of the convention’s committee on publications. American women who supported the suffrage movement at the time were, for the most part, viewed by men as a novelty. In contrast, suffrage supporters in England often were portrayed as violent bordering on anarchists.
A cartoon at the time summed up the image differences. It depicted English women throwing bricks and hatchets through window to the gleeful approval of a man identified as a glassmaker. American women were shown marching, while a shoemaker looked on in approval. Louise remained active in the movement in Northern Kentucky. In 1915 she took a stance on the issue of whether the Kenton County chapter of the Equal Rights Association should affiliate with the Booth Hospital Auxiliary. It became a divisive issue and resulted in the formation of two groups. Louise sided with the group wanting to affiliate with the Book auxiliary.
As a result, she became more involved with Booth Hospital and was among the special patrons of a dinner dance sponsored for the benefit of the hospital in 1916. But by 1916, Louise was 59 and her pace in public issues had begun to slow. Her sister, Virginia, died on September 29, 1929. Her obituary said that she had been a teacher in Cincinnati for eight years and had been ill about three weeks.
Among her survivors was a cousin, Lillian Southgate, who was a Holmes High School English teacher, and an uncle, James Southgate, who was formerly president of the Albert Lea Minnesota College for Girls. A few years later Louise Southgate closed her medical practice. The city eventually bought her house on Garrard Street and the house ultimately was torn down for the development of George Rogers Clark Park.
In 1930 Dr. Louise, as president of the Pioneer Women Suffrage Association, unveiled a plaque at the Hamilton County Courthouse in tribute to early suffragists. In 1931 she retired after 38 years of practice.
Louise Southgate died
August 15, 1941 at her sister Eleanor Green's home in Kenton County at the age of 84.