The Commission  
Mission and Values Members Meetings
Our Heritage  
Philadelphia Campaign Path to Freedom Agriculture Iron & Steel Natural Landscapes Creative Expression
Events and Visits  
Calendar County Sponsored Events Plan Your Trip Explore HIN
Partner Resources  
For Educators For Historians For Municipalities
Updates and Stories  
Articles Newsletter Updates
Contact Us
decorative top

Ann Preston, Medical Pioneer and Women's Rights Advocate

By Laurie A. Rofini, March 2026

Ann Preston
Ann Preston, MD. Carte-de-visite by J. W. Hurn, Philadelphia, 1867. Courtesy Chester County History Center, West Chester, PA.
Horticultural Hall
Horticultural Hall, site of the 1852 Pennsylvania Woman's Rights Convention. Photograph by Thomas W. Taylor, West Chester, circa 1870. Courtesy Chester County History Center, West Chester, PA.
Amos Preston's Will
Amos Preston's 1856 will filed with the Chester County Register of Wills Office. Chester County Archives, Wills & Administrations, file #13031.

174 years ago a radical event occurred at West Chester's Horticultural Hall, now home to the Chester County History Center. The Pennsylvania Woman's Rights Convention held there June 2-3, 1852 was the first of its kind in Pennsylvania, and only the eighth in the United States. At the time, women had limited legal and property rights, especially if they were married. They could not vote or serve on juries, although they could be taxed. Job opportunities were extremely limited, as was access to higher education.

The convention passed 16 resolutions. These addressed "no taxation without representation," the right to vote, equal pay for equal work, parental rights, and access to educational opportunities and careers.

The main speech at the convention was given by Ann Preston, MD. Preston was born in West Grove in 1813. A member of the Society of Friends, she actively opposed slavery and supported the prohibition of alcohol. As a delegate to the 1838 Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women held in Philadelphia, she witnessed a mob attack and burn down the newly-built Pennsylvania Hall, the site of the convention and other anti-slavery meetings.

Today, she is primarily remembered as a pioneer in medical education for women. Her career grew out of her desire to lecture on women's health. After studying with a local doctor, she applied to area medical schools, but they refused to admit a woman.

Women who wished to become doctors in the mid-19th century faced opposition from male physicians, medical schools, and many in society. Women were viewed as too weak and delicate to withstand the rigors of medical education and practice. A group of local men counteracted these traditional beliefs in 1850 and established the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia-based school was the first in the world established to grant women medical degrees. On December 30, 1851, the college's first class graduated, including Ann Preston.

Just five months after receiving her medical degree, Ann Preston spoke to the crowd in Horticultural Hall. Her experience in gaining that degree was fresh in her mind:

We ask that woman shall have free access to vocations of profit and honor, the means of earning a livelihood and independence for herself! As a general rule, profitable employments are not considered open to woman, nor are her business capabilities encouraged and developed by systematic training… Their brothers may go out into society and gain position and competency; but for them there is but little choice of employment, and, too often, they are left with repressed and crippled energies to pine and chafe under the bitter sense of poverty and dependence.

To Ann Preston, having professional opportunity was not just a key to economic independence. It was also necessary for intellectual growth and personal independence:

Those who are best acquainted with the state of society know that there is, at this time, a vast amount of unhappiness among women for want of free outlets to their powers; that thousands are yearning for fuller development, and a wider field of usefulness… We protest against the tyranny of that public sentiment which assigns any arbitrary sphere to woman.

Dr. Preston was very fortunate that she grew up in a family that valued the education of girls and supported her desire to become a doctor. That belief in equality was evidenced by the will of her father, Amos Preston, who died in 1856. Amos left his estate to his "beloved Wife Margaret Preston" during her lifetime, with the stipulation that she was to give their son Charles $300 for his business endeavors. He further states:

As regards our other Children, namely Joseph, Ann, Simpson, Smith, Levi and Howard, I having given to each of them the like sum of three hundred dollars as they respectively entered into business in accordance with my approval, and as they are succeeding with reasonable success I purpose to give to them no more during the lifetime of their mother.

After Margaret's death, the estate was to be equally divided among all the children — Ann and her six brothers.

Ann Preston's inclusion with her brothers as a child who had received money towards a successful career speaks to how her parents viewed her. The will is also evidence that the family was financially comfortable — the $300 that her brother Charles received in 1856 is equivalent to $11,870.51 in purchasing power today (if you're curious about the source of that figure, visit MeasuringWorth.com).

After speaking at the Pennsylvania Woman's Rights Convention, Dr. Preston went on to become a professor and then a dean at her alma mater, which by then was named Women's Medical College. She was the first woman dean of a medical college in the United States. She also was instrumental in establishing Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia, which opened in 1861.

Ann Preston, MD died in 1872. The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin marked her passing: "[She] has lived to see the cause which she so admirably and modestly illustrated and so ably defended, placed upon a basis which permits her to depart from a work whose ultimate success is no longer in doubt."

Author's Note: An earlier version of this article was published on the website of the Chester County Archives and in the March 2020 issue of East Bradford Neighbors.

Sources & Further Reading

About Laurie Rofini

Laurie A. Rofini is an archivist and historian, who retired in 2021 as the Director of Chester County Archives and Records Services (CCARS), a County department administered in cooperation with the Chester County History Center. On the staff at CCARS for 39 years, she served 19 years as Director and 16 as Archivist. Her research has focused on Chester County women and social reform movements. She has given presentations to a wide range of professional, academic, and community-based organizations. Rofini is the co-author, with William R. Meltzer, of "The Woman Suffrage Campaign in West Chester" in West Chester, the First 200 Years: 1799-1999 (1999). She also curated or co-curated several exhibitions at Chester County History Center, including "Meeting for Equality: The 1852 Pennsylvania Woman's Rights Convention" in 2002. More recently, Rofini contributed two sketches of Chester County suffragists to the Online Biographical Dictionary of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the United States. She is also the author of "'Rung it Never can be Until All Women are Free': Katharine Wentworth Ruschenberger and the Justice Bell," published in the Autumn 2020 issue of Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies. Rofini holds an MA and a BA in History from West Chester University and an MSLIS (Master of Science in Library and Information Science) from Drexel University.