Dr. Mary Edwards Walker led an unconventional life for a women of the mid-nineteenth century. She became a doctor when few women were even credentialed in nursing, divorced in an era when women's positions were primarily defined by marriage and motherhood, advocated dress reform for women and even wore men's full-dress clothing to lecture on women's rights. She often challenged medical orthodoxy. For example, she discouraged surgeons from the extensive practice of amputation.

Dr. Walker is also the only woman ever awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

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