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// Workers AI · dad joke modeWho's Caroline Hamilton? Hamil-ton of fun.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Caroline Frances Hamilton
Caroline Frances Hamilton, from an 1899 publication
Caroline Frances Hamilton, from an 1899 publication
Born(1861-09-18)September 18, 1861
West Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.
DiedSeptember 10, 1944(1944-09-10) (aged 82)
White Plains, New York, U.S.
OccupationsPhysician, medical missionary

Caroline Frances Hamilton (September 18, 1861[1] – September 10, 1944) was an American physician and medical missionary based in Gaziantep, Turkey, from 1892 to 1932.

Early life and education

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Hamilton was born in West Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of Benedict Wood Hamilton and Electa Sophia Millard Hamilton.[2] She graduated from Smith College in 1885.[3] She earned her medical degree in 1888, at the Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children.[4][5]

Career

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Hamilton was a co-founder and resident physician of the Rivington Street Settlement in New York.[3]

Hamilton and Mary Pierson Eddy were the first two Western women licensed to practice medicine by the Sultan of Turkey, in 1893.[6] She was a medical missionary in Turkey, at a mission station maintained by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. She was associated with Azariah Smith Memorial Hospital in Gaziantep (Aintab).[7][8] She traveled often on horseback,[9] staying in villages to treat women and refugees who had limited access to obstetric and gynecological care,[3][10] and training local healthcare workers.[11][12] She wrote letters home, describing atrocities and political upheaval.[13][14] She spent some time during World War I on house arrest, forbidden to practice.[15] "In all of these wearying tasks, her hearty fellowship, and her power of imparting to fainting hearts her own courage and good cheer make the doctor in a peculiar sense a trusted friend," commented the Smith College magazine in 1908.[3]

Hamilton attended the second interdenominational Medical Missionary Conference in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1910.[16] In 1898 and 1919 she attended the annual meetings of the Women's Board of Missions, in New England.[17][18] During furloughs[19] and after she retired from the mission field, she spoke about her experiences before women's clubs and church groups in New England.[20][21]

Publications

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  • "At the Hospital in Aintab" (1899)[22]

Personal life

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Hamilton died in 1944, at the age of 82, in White Plains, New York.[4][9]

References

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  1. Hamilton's gravestone gives October 19, 1862 as her birth date; this was her baptismal date, according to Connecticut Church Record Abstracts, via Ancestry. September 18, 1861 is the birth date she gave on her 1920 application for a new United States passport, via Ancestry.
  2. Hall, William Hutchins (1930). West Hartford. Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. West Hartford. p. 245 via Internet Archive.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Caroline F. Hamilton, M.D., 1885". The Smith College Monthly. 16 (3): 188. December 1908.
  4. 1 2 "Dr. C. F. Hamilton to be Buried Today". Hartford Courant. 1944-09-14. p. 4. Retrieved 2025-03-06 via Newspapers.com.
  5. "West Hartford". Hartford Courant. 1898-08-30. p. 10. Retrieved 2025-03-06 via Newspapers.com.
  6. "Untitled news item". The Medical Standard. 14 (5): 148. November 1893.
  7. Missions, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign (1894). Report. p. 42.
  8. Greene, Joseph K. (1916). Leavening the Levant. Pilgrim Press. p. 151.
  9. 1 2 Fowler, Mary (1944-09-28). "Women in the Church". The Stephenson Farmer. p. 4. Retrieved 2025-03-06 via Newspapers.com.
  10. Barton, James Levi (1998). Turkish Atrocities: Statements of American Missionaries on the Destruction of Christian Communities in Ottoman Turkey, 1915-1917. Gomidas Institute. pp. 113–114. ISBN 978-1-884630-04-0.
  11. İskefiyeli, Zeynep; Yavuz, Fikrettin (2025-01-07). "A medical trailblazer in the Ottoman Empire: The legacy of Dr Caroline Frances Hamilton (1861–1944)". Journal of Medical Biography 09677720241304653. doi:10.1177/09677720241304653. ISSN 0967-7720. PMID 39764594.
  12. "A Conference in Central Turkey" The Missionary Herald 98(November 1902): 444.
  13. Kirakossian, Arman Dzhonovich (2004). The Armenian Massacres, 1894-1896: U.S. Media Testimony. Wayne State University Press. pp. 118–121. ISBN 978-0-8143-3153-8.
  14. "Up to Uncle Sam to Uplift Turkey Says Dr. Caroline Hamilton". Hartford Courant. 1920-02-29. p. 24. Retrieved 2025-03-06 via Newspapers.com.
  15. "A New Spirit for a New Goal". Life and Light for Woman. 49: 539. December 1919.
  16. "The Medical Missionary Conference". The Medical Missionary. 19 (3): 68. March 1910.
  17. Kyle, Alice M. (December 1898). "Our Work at Home: Annual Meeting of the Woman's Board of Missions". Life and Light for Heathen Women. 28: 554.
  18. "A Series of Great Meetings in Providence". The Congregationalist and Advance. 104: 757. November 27, 1919.
  19. "Meriden Ladies to Attend Convention". The Journal. 1910-05-09. p. 4. Retrieved 2025-03-06 via Newspapers.com.
  20. "Mission Group to Meet". Springfield Evening Union. 1933-04-10. p. 15. Retrieved 2025-03-06 via Newspapers.com.
  21. "Up to Uncle Sam to Uplift Turkey Says Dr. Caroline Hamilton". Hartford Courant. 1920-02-29. p. 24. Retrieved 2025-03-06 via Newspapers.com.
  22. Hamilton, Caroline F. (September 1899). "At the Hospital in Aintab". Life and Light for Woman: 394–400 via Internet Archive.