Who Was Harriet Jemima Clisby?

Harriet Clisby arrived in South Australia with her pioneer family in 1838 and after growing up in the fledgling colony moved on to Melbourne and then overseas to pursue a medical career. She became one of the first female doctors to graduate in America and created a substantial legacy for the betterment of women in the nineteenth century, establishing the Women's Educational and Industrial Union in Boston, which still operates today as the Crittenton Women's Union providing direct services to low-income and at-risk women and their families in the greater Boston area as well as conducting research and practicing public advocacy to identify barriers to economic self-sufficiency in order to lobby for legislative and policy changes to remove them. At the time of her death in 1931 she was the oldest living female doctor in Australia, if not the world.